Bridgcwater 
Booh 


LEWIS  G.  LOWE  £^  SON, 


LIFE 


T'^i'^c^-^^.nNSURANCE. 


53  DEVONSHIRE  STREET,  BOSTON. 
SAVINGS  BANK,  BRIDGEWATER,  MASS. 


We  call  special  attention  to   our    town    views 
in  this  book.     Duplicates  furnished  at  any  time. 


When  vou  want  fine  portrait-work,  rrv 


. . .  KING, 


BRIDGEWATER,  Mass 


/,mA  C.  KEtTH,  President.  ts.A.\c  N.  N  utter,  Treiss!. 

Plymouth  County 

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Main  Stufrt,  Hrockton,  \1a,sn. 


depc 

Storage  in  vaults  for  safe-keeping  of 
valuable  packages. 


Hotel  Keswick, 


ls  .main  street 


Brockt< 


The 


''"'niXCutrSir'^*-  I    white  star  Laundry, 

i  BROCKTO>:,  ^ 

I 

j  Dover  Street  and  84  Main  Slixtt, 


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N.  H.  SKINNER  COMPANY. 


TAUNTON'S 


! 

♦  Representative    Dry  Goods  House,   j 


The  largest  stocks  in  every  Department. 
Best  service.      Most  attractive  assortments. 
Prices  always  reasonable 


It  Will  Pay  You  Well  to  Visit  This  Store. 


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Taunton   Ladies'  Clothing  Co., 

Successor  to  CHAS.  CURTIS, 
60  MAIN  STREET,    TAUNTON. 
A  Full  and  Complete  Line  of ...  . 

Ladies'  Cloaks,    Suits,  Wrappers,  etc., 

at    Popular  Prices 


H.  W.   ROBINSON  &  CO., 

DR.  G.  E.  DONHAM, 

The   Leading 

Dentist, 

Dry  Goods   House 

56  City  Square,  Taunton. 

OF  BROCKTON. 

Car  fere  allowed  on  all  work  amounting  to  $2.00  or  more  to  all 
coming  from  Bridgewater. 

If  you  have  trouble  with  the 
Eye,  Ear,  Nose,  or  Throat, 

Ebenezer  Alden, 

CALL    UPON 

CAMPELLO. 

DR.  0.  L.  BARTLETT, 

Glasses  carefully   fitted.                                  Hours:    1.30  to  4.30. 

Hardware,  Crockery,  White  Lead,  Oil,  Brushes, 
Varnish,  and  Paint  Stock  at  Boston  Prices. 

172  Main  Street,  Brockton. 

A  AX^    J^lAWie^W  A^W-A    a^XJVB 


GEORGE    E.    WOODBURY, 

Dentist, 
204  Main   Street,  Brockton. 


J.  J.   VINCENT,   D.M.D. 

Dentist, 
126   Main    Street,   Brockton. 


Vesta  Delphene  Miller,  M.D., 

1 10  Tremont  Street,  Room  10, 

BOSTON. 

Monday  and  Thursday.  Residence,  NEEDHAM,  MASS. 

Have  you  a  Satisfactory  Endowment  Insurance  on  your  life  ? 
Write  for  Special  Features  of  tiiis  great  Company. 

T.  W.  CROCKER, 

Bridgewater,  Mass. 

Agent  for 

Mutual  Life  Insurance  Co.  of  New  York,  The  Best  Life  Insurance 

,thc  Leading,  Oldest,  and  Largest  is  that  which  best  meets  your 

Life  Insurance  Co.  circiimsUnces. 


BRIDGEWATER  BRANCH  OF 

CHAPIN'S  FARM  AGENCY. 

Residences,  Farms,  and  House  Lots  FOR  SALE 

On    the  best  streets  in    Bridgewater  and  adjoining  towns,    fully 
described  in  the  "  New  England  Illustrated,"  mailed  postpaid  by 

GEORGE  F.   KEITH. 

Cor.  South  and  Pleasant  Streets,  BRIDGEWATER,  MASS. 

DO  YOU   WANT  THE  BEST? 

CALL  ON  BURRELL  &  CO. 

For  first-class  Photographs,  where  you  can  get  Portraits  that  are 
works  of  art.  Any  kind  or  size  Crayons,  Pastels,  MedaUions,  Bas- 
reliefs,  Silhouettes,  Miniatures  on  ivory,  etc.  Please  call  and  sec 
our  new  samples.     Sittings  on  Wednesday  and  Saturday  evenings. 

Room  4,  corner  Main  and  Centre  Streets. 


W.   p.   HUTCHINSON, 

BOX    MANUFACTURER. 

Wholesale  and  Retail   Lumber  Dealer. 
Interior  and  Exterior  Builders'  Finish. 

Mouldings,  Sheathings,  Drawer  Cases,  Stair  and 
Cabinet  Worlc. 

Special  attention  given  to  detail  work.    Bracket  and  Turned  Work 
Kiln-dried  Lumber. 

74  Spark   Street,   Brockton. 

Telephone  54-6.  Main  Office  and  Yard  at  Bridgewater,  Mass. 

BRAMAN    BROTHERS, 

Dealers  in  Paints,  Oils,  Varnishes, 
and  Window  Glass. 

Sign   Painting.      Ornamental  Work. 
Frescoing,  Graining,  Paper-hanging,  etc. 

BRIDGEWATER,  MASS. 


AT  THE 

BROCKTON     BOOK-BINDERY 

42  CENTRE  STREET 

YOU  WILL  FIND  A  LARGE 

LINE   OF   BIBLES 

BLANK  BOOKS,   AND 

STATIONERY 


1  be  Dnagewater  ix>ok 


When  You 
Want  To 
Know 

anything  about  heating  your 
home  or  place  of  business, 
it  would  be  a  pleasure  to 
send  one  of  our  heating 
engineers  to  give  you  the 
desired  information. 

GLENWOOD 

RANGES  and 
HEATERS 


Are  acknowledged  the  "  standard  of  excellence  "  throughout  New  England, 
and  there  is  no  heating  line  made  to-day  that  can  compare  in  careful  finish 
or  practical  economy  with  the  popular 

GLENWOOD 

EITHER  HOT  WATER,  STEAM,  WARM 
AIR,  OR    COMBINATION    HEATERS.  .-. 

Call  at  J.  H.  Fairbanks',  Bridgewater,  or  write  the  Weir  Stove  Company, 

Taunton,  Mass. 


^^ 


i^^^- 

^ 


...  ESTEY    ORGANS  ... 

For  .-.   Parlor,  .-.   Church,  .-.  Chapel,  .*.  School-room. 

Send  tor  New  Illustrated  Catalogue,  Free. 

ESTEY    ORGAN    COMPANY,    180   TREMONT    STREET,   BOSTON. 


H.  H.  FILOON, 

Dentist, 
80  Main  Street,  Brockton. 

Good  Work.  Fair  Prices. 


B.  E.  Jones  &  Company 

The  New  Idea  Dry   Goods   Store. 

CLOAKS, 

SUITS, 

WAISTS. 

P.  D.,  Z.  Z.,  and  Her  Majesty's  Corsets. 

Main  and  Centre  Streets,  "  On  the  Corner," 

BROCKTON. 

UNEEDA 

Robe  or  blanket  this  winter  if  you 
own  a  carriage,  and  the  best  place 
to  buy  one  is  at 

PECK  &  WHITE'S, 

29  to  35  Weir  St.,  Taunton. 

open  Monday,  Friday,  and  Saturday  evenings. 
E.  O.  Novts.  C.  A.  NoYES. 

E.  O.  NoYEs  &  Company, 

Wholesale  and  Retail  Dealers  in 

BUILDERS'  HARDWARE, 

Cutlery  and  Tools,  Agricultural 
Implements,  etc. 


155  Main  Street, 


Brockton,  Mass. 


J.    H.   COOPER, 

Merchant  Tailor, 
88  Main  Street,  Brockton,  Mass. 

Open  Wednesday  and  Saturday  evenings. 

Some  people  look  well, 
no  matter  what  they  wear. 

You've  heard  that  remark  often. 

If  you   investigate,  you'll    find    they  buy   their 
clothing  of 

HOWARD  &  CALDWELL, 

BROCKTON. 

BROWN   &  MORROW, 

Tin-plate  and 
Sheet-iron  Workers. 

Furnaces,  Parlor  Stoves,  and  Ranges. 

Plumbing.     Steam  and   Hot  Water  Heating. 
Agate,    Tin,    and    Wooden   Ware. 

240    Main    Street,    Brockton, 
george  c.  morrow. 

GURNEY    BROTHERS, 

Established  1863. 

Je%vellers  and  Opticians. 

Dealers  in 

DIAMONDS. 
No.    122   Main   Street,  corner  of  School, 

BROCKTON,    MASS. 


Th 


e 


BRIDGEWATER 

BOOK 


ILLUSTRATED 


BOSTON 

GEORGE  H.  ELLIS,  PRINTER,  172  CONGRESS  STREET 

1899 


CONTENTS, 

PAGE 

Bridgwater  in  England        5 

The  Settlement  Here 7 

James  Keith 8 

West  Bridgewater Francis  E.  Howard  9 

The  Howard  Seminary Francis  E.  Howard  1 1 

East  Bridgewater Hon.  Benjamin  W.  Harris  12 

North  Bridgewater  and  Brockton Bradford  Kingman  16 

Bridgewater lo 

A  Common  Weed John  White  Chadwick  24 

Recollections  OF  Bridgewater \^Lucia  Alden  Bradford  Kuapp  ) 

{John  White  Chadwick               S  ^5 

At  School  :  From  Four  to  Sixteen Martha  Keith  27 

The  Memorial  Library Theodore  F.  Wright,  Ph.D.  29 

The  State  Normal  School Albert  G.  Boyden  31 

Parish  and  Church  in  the  Old  Times 33 

The  State  Farm Hollis  M.  Bhukstone  37 

Ministries 3g 

The  Old  Bridgewater  Historical  Society 40 


EDITORIAL. 

'  I  'HE  views  marked  in  one  corner  with  a  K  are  engraved  from  photographs  taken  by  Mr. 
Charles  H.  King,  of  Bridgewater,  who  can  supply  copies  of  these  and  of  many  others. 
Most  of  the  views  on  the  second  East  Bridgewater  plate  and  several  on  the  first  plate  are  from 
photographs  taken  by  Mr.  Joseph  C.  Crocker,  and  others  (the  weir,  bridge,  pond,  and  store)  by 
Mr.  Charles  E.  Bennett,  both  of  East  Bridgewater.  At  the  foot  of  the  first  Bridgewater  plate  are 
views  of  the  new  and  old  railroad  stations.  The  latter  picture  and  that  of  the  Oak  Street  Bridge 
were  taken  by  Mr,  Albert  W.  Bowman.  The  view  of  the  Common  at  the  foot  of  the  third 
Bridgewater  plate  was  taken  from  the  Academy  grounds  by  Mr.  George  H.  Townsend. 

In  the  frontispiece  High  Street  crosses  the  foreground ;  and  Broad  Street,  coming  from  East 
Bridgewater,  descends  the  hill  (with  the  electric  car  poles)  to  the  centre  of  the  picture.  The 
Normal  School  roof  and  the  steeples  of  the  First  Parish  and  Central  Square  churches  are  seen 
against  the  sky.  The  Fair  Grounds  are  on  the  left  side  of  the  centre ;  the  shoe-shop,  Eagle 
Cotton-gin  works  and  foundry,  on  the  right.     This  view  was  taken  by  Mr.  King. 

The  flowers  and  the  Iron  Works  bell  tower  were  drawn  by  Mrs.  T.  H.  Andrews.  The  article 
on  Bridgewater  was  prepared  from  memoranda  supplied  by  Mr.  Joshua  E.  Crane,  and  has  been 
revised  by  him.  The  article  on  Parish  and  Church  is  based  on  Edward  Buck's  "  Massachusetts 
Ecclesiastical  Law,"  (Boston,  1866),  which  is  in  the  Boston  Athenaeum  Library,  Ellis's  and 
Byington's  books  on  the  Puritans,  and  Palfrey's  New  England. 


BRIDGWATER  IN  ENGLAND. 

'T  is  one  of  the  chief  towns  of  pleasant  Somersetshire  in  South-western  England, 
ranking  in  the  county  fourth  in  size,  a  busy,  prosperous,  seaport  town  of  fif- 
teen thousand  people.  It  is  compactly  built,  like  most  English  towns ;  for 
once  they  were  walled  about  to  make  them  secure  in  turbulent  times,  and  the 
houses  had  to  be  crowded  together.  Through  the  middle  of  it  flows  to  the  north  the  river 
Parret,  turbid  and  tawny  with  the  sand  and  mud  brought  up  by  the  strong  tides  from  the 
Bristol  Channel,  six  miles  away  in  a  direct  line,  but  twelve  miles  off  by  the  winding  course 
of  the  stream.  The  sediment  of  the  river,  left  plentifully  on  the  sloping  banks  after  every 
tide,  has  long  been  used  to  make  what  is  known  in  commerce  and  housekeeping  as  Bath 
or  Bristol  brick.  The  manufacture  of  this  is  an  important  business  here,  because  only 
within  a  short  distance  of  this  town,  up  or  down  the  river,  can  the  mud  be  found  in  its 
best  quality.  There  is  only  one  highway  bridge  over  the  river,  the  railroad  bridge  cross- 
ing a  little  further  down  the  stream ;  and  this  highway  bridge,  made  of  iron,  is  nearly  in 
the  centre  of  the  town.  Two  views  of  it,  looking  to  the  north  from  the  upper  stream  and 
from  opposite  banks,  are  given  in  the  plate  of  pictures.  The  river  at  low  tide  is  little 
more  than  a  brook,  but  at  high  tide  it  is  about  forty-eight  feet  wide  at  the  bridge.  In  one 
of  the  views  the  masts  of  ships  are  seen  in  the  distance.  They  cannot  come  above  the 
bridges ;  and  in  a  huge  dock  on  the  west  side  of  the  river  below  the  railroad  bridge  they 
find  shelter  from  the  dangerous  tides,  which  sometimes  rise  thirty-six  feet  and  occasion- 
ally send  up  the  river  a  "  bore,"  or  perpendicular  wave,  six  or  eight  feet  high.  The  barges 
seen  in  the  river  above  the  bridge  are  used  for  navigation  up  the  river  and  its  branches  as 
far  as  Taunton,  Ilchester,  Glastonbury,  and  other  important  towns.  Fore  Street,  of  which 
a  view  is  given,  leads  from  the  west  end  of  the  bridge  to  the  market  (seen  here  in  the 
distance  and  pictured  in  another  view)  and  to  St.  Mary's,  the  "  parish  church  "  or  central 
house  of  worship  of  the  "  Established  Church,"  or  Episcopalian  order.  High  Street  is  on 
the  north,  or  right  hand,  of  the  market,  and  is  one  of  the  important  streets,  having  the 
chief  hotels  and  many  shops.  The  private  house,  in  a  view  by  itself,  is  the  residence  of 
the  present  mayor  of  the  town,  Thomas  Good,  Esq.,  solicitor.  The  view  is  taken  from  the 
garden  in  the  rear  of  the  house,  and  shows  the  drawing-room  windows. 

The  neighboring  country  is  flat  for  several  miles,  especially  to  the  east,  where  Sedge- 
moor  lies,  the  scene  of  the  bloody  defeat  of  the  Duke  of  Monmouth's  rebel  army,  July  6, 
1685,  which  was  followed  by  many  frightful  executions  in  Bridgwater  and  all  Somerset- 
shire by  the  victorious  army  and  next  September  by  the  infamous  Judge  Jeffreys,  of  whom 
Macaulay  has  told  the  story  in  his  History  of  England.  The  battle  is  vividly  described  in 
Blackmore's  "  Lorna  Doone."  It  was  "the  last  fight,  deserving  the  name  of  a  battle," 
says  Macaulay,  "  that  has  been  fought  on  English  ground."  Taunton,  a  larger  town,  is 
about  ten  miles  west  of  south,  on  a  branch  of  the  Parret,  and  is  connected  with  Bridg- 
water by  highway,  railroad,  and  canal.  North  of  Taunton  stretch  to  the  Bristol  Channel, 
and  six  or  ten  miles  west  of  Bridgwater,  the  high  Quantock  Hills,  from  which  there  are 
fine  views. 


6  The  Bfidgewater  Book 

This  part  of  Somerset  is  romantic  with  traditions  of  King  Alfred,  the  brave  and  wise 
Saxon  chief  who  finally  delivered  West  England  from  the  invading  Danes.  It  was  pecul- 
iarly his  country.  The  "isle"  of  Athelney,  about  six  miles  south  of  Bridgwater,  in  what 
was  then  a  marsh,  but  is  now  a  drained  and  fertile  region,  was  his  refuge  from  the  Danes 
in  878,  when  they  pressed  him  hard,  just  before  his  final  campaign  and  victory.  The 
Danes  were  encamped  near  Bridgwater,  having  landed  from  the  Bristol  Channel.  Alfred 
disguised  himself  as  a  harper,  and  visited  the  Danish  camps.  It  is  at  Athelney,  according 
to  the  old  legend,  that  Alfred,  hiding  among  the  peasants,  was  scolded  by  a  peasant's  wife, 
who  did  not  know  him,  for  letting  her  cakes  burn  by  the  fire,  when  he  had  been  charged 
to  watch  them.  This  region  is  also  King  Arthur's  country,  the  British  chief  who  fought 
the  Saxon  invaders,  according  to  a  dim  tradition,  nearly  four  hundred  years  before.  He 
was  said  to  be  buried  in  Glastonbury,  about  twelve  miles  east  of  Bridgwater.  Still  earlier, 
V  ".en  the  Romans  for  nearly  four  centuries  ruled  in  England,  there  was  a  prosperous 
town  here ;  and  probably  long  previously  there  was  a  fortified  village,  which  grew  up  on 
account  of  this  only  ford  through  the  river,  to  which  many  roads  centred,  and  also  on 
account  of  the  seaport  down  the  river. 

The  ford  gave  the  name  of  Brugie,  or  bridge,  to  the  village  in  Saxon  times.  When 
William  the  Conqueror  after  1066  parcelled  England  out  among  his  Norman  barons, 
Brugie  and  the  vicinity  were  given  to  a  Baron  Walter,  and  the  place  began  to  be  known 
as  Brugie- Walter,  or  Walter's  Bridge,  which  finally  became  Bridgwater.  In  1201  Lord 
William  Brewer,  who  had  succeeded  to  the  Walter  rights  and  began  to  build,  in  place  of 
the  old  Saxon  wooden  bridge,  a  three-arched  stone  bridge  which  stood  for  more  than  five 
hundred  years  until  replaced  by  an  iron  bridge,  was  given  permission  by  King  John  to 
build,  for  the  protection  of  the  bridge  and  close  to  it,  just  north  of  the  present  Fore  Street, 
a  huge  castle,  surrounded  by  a  moat  thirty  feet  wide,  one  of  the  largest  and  strongest 
castles  in  England.  Around  this  castle  a  town  gradually  grew  up,  in  place  of  the  primi- 
tive small  Saxon  village,  which  was  generally  the  way  in  which  towns  grew  up  under  the 
shelter  of  a  baron's  castle  in  those  feudal  ages.  In  1645,  when  Bridgwater  had  become 
the  most  important  town  in  South-western  England,  the  town  and  castle  were  fiercely 
assaulted  by  Cromwell's  army  during  the  Civil  War,  and  were  surrendered  with  a  garrison 
of  1,600  officers  and  soldiers.  As  late  as  1810  some  of  the  walls  were  still  standing,  but 
all  have  now  disappeared. 

For  some  years  before  the  Civil  War  in  England  there  was  a  large  migration  of 
Puritans  to  New  England,  who  lovingly  transplanted  many  of  their  cherished  customs  and 
even  the  names  of  the  towns  and  villages  where  they  had  lived,  so  that  their  homes  in  this 
wilderness  across  the  ocean  might  as  much  as  possible  remind  them  of  their  old  homes  in 
their  mother  land.  Somersetshire  had  long  been  famous  for  its  adventurous  mariners  and 
merchants,  and  the  Puritans  were  numerous  in  this  town  and  its  neighborhood.  It  is  said 
that  our  Taunton  in  Massachusetts  was  named  in  compliment  to  one  of  its  early  settlers, 
Miss  Elizabeth  Poole,  who  was  born  near  the  English  Taunton  ;  and  it  Js  probable  that 
our  Bridgewater,  being  settled  soon  after  Taunton,  was  named  on  account  of  the  home 
affection  of  some  of  its  first  inhabitants.  Mitchells  and  Hoopers  and  Bryants  and  Aliens 
were  prominent  citizens  in  the  English  town,  these  names  being  found  in  the  lists  of 
mayors  and  members  of  Parliament ;  and  they  are  also  familiar  names  in  the  history  of  our 
New  England  town. 


THE  SETTLEMENT  HERE. 

JOR  twelve  years  after  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  in  1620,  Plymouth  was 
the  only  town  in  the  colony.  A  few  small  settlements  gradually  grew  up 
along  the  coast,  so  that  Duxbury  was  incorporated  in  1632  and  Scituate  in 
1636.  Far  to  the  west,  by  the  tide-waters  of  Narragansett  Bay,  Taunton  was 
settled  by  families  from  Massachusetts  Bay  in  1637  and  incorporated  in  1639.  But  the 
higher  land  between  Plymouth  and  Taunton,  mostly  drained  by  the  branches  of  a  stream 
which  flows  into  Narragansett  Bay,  and  separated  from  the  Plymouth  slopes  by  the  PenT"-' 
broke  and  Halifax  hills,  remained  the  forest  home  of  Indians,  whose  chief  was  Massasoit, 
later  known  as  Ousamequin,  the  hospitable  savage  who  had  befriended  the  first  settlers 
on  the  coast.  In  1645,  however,  Miles  Standish  and  other  Duxbury  men  received  per- 
mission from  the  Old  Colony  government  to  buy  of  the  Indians  in  this  wilderness  sixty- 
four  square  miles,  afterward  increased  to  about  eighty-six, —  of  which  the  centre  was  at  a 
spot  now  marked  by  a  stone  near  the  Westdale  station, —  as  compensation  for  the  loss  of 
territory  from  Duxbury  when  Marshfield  was  taken  from  this  town.  In  1649  a  deed  of 
this  land  was  signed  by  Ousamequin  on  Sachem's  rock,  as  tradition  says,  near  the  present 
Carver  Cotton-gin  Works ;  and  the  land  was  first  called  "Duxbury  New  Plantation." 

There  was  also  a  migration  from  Massachusetts  Bay,  Deacon  Samuel  Edson  coming 
from  Salem  about  1650,  and  settling  in  what  is  now  West  Bridgewater  on  the  south  side 
of  the  river,  now  called  the  Town  River,  just  above  where  the  Howard,  or  Tavern,  Bridge 
now  stands.  And,  because  this  was  the  richest  land  in  the  whole  region,  some  of  the  Dux- 
bury people  who  had  taken  shares  in  the  purchase  settled  near  him  about  the  same  time 
on  scattered  farms  along  the  river  from  below  the  present  village  of  West  Bridgewater 
gradually  extending  up  the  river  to  within  a  mile  of  the  head  of  it  in  Lake  Nippenicket. 
One  of  the  first  of  these  was  John  Howard,  whose  house  was  the  first  tavern,  for  more 
than  a  century  the  only  tavern,  in  the  region  ;  and  for  a  long  time  the  bridge  near  by  was 
the  only  bridge  over  the  river.  This  was  therefore  the  centre  to  which  all  the  primitive 
paths  converged, —  one  from  the  Massachusetts  Bay  towns  on  the  north,  known  as  "the 
Bay  path  "  ;  two  others  to  the  south-east,  along  the  river  on  opposite  sides  of  it,  through 
the  wilderness  which  is  now  Bridgewater,  on  the  way  to  Plymouth ;  and  others  through 
the  woods  north  and  south  of  Lake  Nippenicket  to  Taunton  on  the  south-west,  where  the 
first  settlers  went  to  trade  and  carried  grist  on  foot. 

In  1656  the  town  was  incorporated  as  Bridgewater,  being  the  first  town  settled  away 
from  the  coast  within  the  Old  Colony  limits.  It  was  the  northern  part  of  the  valley  of " 
the  Taunton  River,  which  is  the  junction  (near  Paper-mill  Village,  or  Pratt-town,  in 
Bridgewater)  of  the  Town  River,  flowing  from  West  Bridgewater,  and  the  Satucket,  of 
which  the  Matfield  is  a  branch,  both  flowing  from  East  Bridgewater.  The  Taunton  River 
separates  Bridgewater  from  Middleboro,  and  runs  off  to  the  westward  to  Taunton,  and  then 
southward.  This  town  at  first  included  what  is  now  Brockton  and  the  greater  part  of 
the  original  town  of  Abington  (set  off  in  1712,  and  embracing  what  are  now  Abington, 
Rockland,  and  Whitman)  and  a  part  of  Hanson. 


JAMES  KEITH. 


ggHfe^^  HE  first  minister  of  Bridgewater  was  born  about  1643,  in  Scotland  across  the 
V/«V^^  ocean,  was  educated  in  Aberdeen  University,  and  came  to  Boston  about  1662, 
MR^W.  when  probably  eighteen  years  old.  He  was  introduced  to  the  Bridgewater 
^^^fe™-*l  church  by  Dr.  Increase  Mather,  of  Boston,  who  wrote  of  him  in  later  years  as 
"  that  gracious,  faithful,  humble  servant  of  God,"  and  referred  to  "  his  painful  "  —  that  is, 
painstaking  or  conscientious, — "and  patient  conduct."  He  seems  to  have  preached  here 
as  merely  a  "  student  in  divinity."  Tradition  says  he  preached  his  first  sermon  on 
"pulpit  rock,"  near  the  river  in  the  mill  meadow  just  behind  the  present  post-office, 
from  Jer.  i.  6, — "Behold,  I  cannot  speak;  for  I  am  a  child."  In  1664  the  town  voted 
to  settle  him,  and  give  him  "  a  purchase  right,"  —  that  is,  a  fifty-si.xth  part  of  the  original 
grant,  equal  to  what  each  of  the  first  settlers  had, —  "and  other  lands  with  a  house  built 
thereon,"  probably  the  house  which  the  town  in  1661  had  voted  to  build.  It  is  said  to  be  the 
house  now  owned  by  George  M.  Pratt  above  Howard  Bridge  on  the  north  side  of  the  river 
(see  the  plate) ;  but  the  east  half  of  the  house,  on  the  right  hand  of  the  front  door  as  one  en- 
ters, was  added  in  1678,  and  the  rear  afterward  changed.  The  picture  below  shows  the  first 
form  of  the  house  and  the  usual  form  of  houses  then.  The  town-miller,  Deacon  Edson, 
lived  just  across  the  river;  and  the  young  minister  soon  wooed  and  wedded  the  miller's 
daughter  Susanna.  In  1673  the  town  voted  that  "Mr.  Keith,  having  been  some  compe- 
tent time  with  them,  should  have  the  house  and  lands  where  he  lived,  twelve  acres,  and  a 
whole  purchase  right,"  as  had  been  promised  in  1664.  His  salary  was  ;£40  (about  $200), 
half  to  be  paid  at  Boston  in  money  and  the  other  half  at  home  in  produce.  In  1667  he 
was  voted  an  additional  grant  of  thirty  cords  of  wood  yearly.  In  168 1  the  salary  was 
raised  to  ^^50,  and  £,10  of  this  to  be  paid  in  produce.  In  1689  he  was  allowed  £,\0  in 
corn  instead  of  the  thirty  cords  of  wood. 

In  1676  he  interceded  with  the  colonial  authorities  to  spare  the  lives  of  King  Philip's 
wife  and  boy,  just  after  the  Indian  War,  and  was  successful.     In  1707  he  married  a  second 
wife,  Mrs.  Mary  Williams,  of  Taunton.     In  1717,  June  4,  when  seventy-four  years  old,  he 
preached  the  sermon  at  the  dedication  of  the  meeting-house  in  the 
newly  formed  South  Parish,  and  in  this  sermon  made  a  severe 
reference  to  the  prevalence  of  drunkenness,  "  the  scan- 
dalous and  horrible  abuse  of  rum,  which   threatens 
ruin  unto  this  land  and  to  this  place  ;  a  ruin  to 
all  our  dearest  interests,  both  civil  and  re- 
ligious."    He  died  July  23,  1719,  aged  sev- 
enty-six, after  fifty-three  years'  ministry ; 
and  his  grave  is  marked  by  a  tomb  in  the 
cemetery  on  South  Street  near  the  Tavern 
Bridge.    He  left  six  sons  and  three  daugh- 
ters,   from    whom    a   numerous  posterity, 
scattered  in  many  States,  are  descended. 


I 


WEST  BRIDGEWATER. 

HE  first  settlers  in  the  original  town  of  Bridgewater  organized  the  First 
Church  about  165 1.  Samuel  Edson  and  John  Willis  are  early  mentioned  as 
deacons.  In  1656  the  town  was  incorporated,  and  the  first  town-meeting 
held  November  3.  It  was  "a  most  praying  and  most  pious  town,"  as  the 
Mathers  said ;  and  yet  intemperate  habits,  which  were  prevalent  in  New  England  till  after 
the  Revolution,  seem  to  have  grown  up  at  even  this  early  time,  as  is  shown  by  Mr.  Keith's 
remarks  in  171 7.  Soon  after  1662  Mr.  Keith  began  his  ministry.  The  poverty  of  the 
people  made  the  financial  problem  as  perplexing  then,  notwithstanding  the  religiousness 
of  the  town,  as  it  has  generally  been  in  our  New  England  parishes  to  the  present  day ; 
and  in  1689  the  town  instructed  "  David  Perkins,  John  Ames,  and  Samuel  Washburn  to 
get  in  Mr.  Keith's  salary  by  all  loving  persuasions  and  legal  means." 

In  1661  the  first  meeting-house  was  built  of  logs.  A  stone  shaft  on  Howard  Street, 
in  front  of  the  house  of  Francis  E.  Howard,  marks  the  site.  The  first  burying-ground  was 
near  by;  but  the  gravestones,  as  was  usual  then,  were  without  inscriptions,  and  in  1853 
they  were  removed  by  the  owner  of  the  land.  In  1674  the  second  meeting-house,  forty 
feet  by  twenty-six,  and  fourteen  feet  high  inside,  was  built  where  the  Soldiers'  Monument 
now  stands  at  the  present  "  centre,"  and  a  new  burying-ground  was  opened  some  distance 
to  the  north  of  the  meeting-house. 

The  first  tavern,  which  for  more  than  a  century  was  probably  the  only  tavern  in  West 
and  South  Bridgewater,  stood  at  the  corner  of  Howard  and  River  Streets,  near  what  was 
long  known  as  Tavern  Bridge.  The  present  bridge  here  was  built  about  1832,  and  is  often 
known  as  Howard  Bridge.  (See  the  plate.)  As  early  as  1670  John  Howard  was  licensed 
to  keep  the  tavern;  his  son,  John,  Jr.,  followed;  John,  Jr.'s  son.  Major  Edward;  the 
major's  son.  Colonel  Edward;  and,  after  him,  the  colonel's  widow,  Mrs.  Abigail  till  1812. 
Thus  it  was  kept  by  the  same  family  for  one  hundred  and  fifty  years. 

In  1 7 16,  the  south  part  of  the  town  being  set  off,  the  rest  was  known  as  the  North 
Parish  till  1723,  when  it  was  divided  into  the  West  and  East  Parishes.  In  1738  portions 
of  these  were  set  off  as  the  North  Parish. 

Mr.  Keith  died  in  1719;  and  in  1721  Daniel  Perkins  was  ordained,  ministering  for 
sixty-one  years,  till  his  death  in  1782.  He  probably  lived  in  a  house  that  stood  where 
E.  Bradford  Wilbur's  stands  now,  on  Centre  Street,  the  second  from  the  Soldiers'  Monu- 
ment toward  Westdale.  It  was  said  that  his  ministry  was  "not  only  long,  but  peaceful 
and  efficacious,"  from  which  it  might  be  inferred,  as  none  of  his  sermons  are  printed,  that 
he  was  more  successful  as  a  pastor  than  as  a  preacher.  In  1731  the  third  meeting-house 
was  built  on  the  site  of  the  second.  It  was  long  known  as  the  Old  Town-house,  or  the 
"Three  Decker,"  on  account  of  the  three  rows  of  windows.  After  1801  this  was  used 
for  town  purposes  only,  as  the  Parish  built  a  new  house  for  religious  services  ;  and  it  was 
taken  down  in  1823,  after  the  other  parishes  became  towns.  For  nearly  one  hundred 
and  fifty  years  the  people  of  all  the  Bridgewaters  came  to  this  spot  for  their  town- 
meetings. 


10  The  Bridgewater  Book 

At  the  time  of  King  Philip's  war,  1675,  there  were  only  sixty-four  men  who  were  over 
nineteen  years  of  age  in  the  primitive  settlement.  Nearly  a  century  later,  in  1764,  there 
were  106  houses  and  121  families  in  this  Parish,  and  the  population  was  880.  In  1810  it 
was  1,065.  It  diminished  during  the  next  twenty  years,  when  there  were  large  migrations ; 
but  in  1840  it  began  to  grow. 

In  17S0  John  Reed,  a  son  of  the  Rev.  Solomon  Reed  of  Titicut,  and  afterward  a  Doctor 
of  Divinity,  was  ordained  as  colleague  of  Mr.  Perkins,  and,  after  fifty-one  years'  ministry, 
died  in  1831,  seventy-nine  years  old.  During  his  time  a  Baptist  society  was  formed  in 
1785,  which  died  out  before  1833,  and  was  revived  in  1835.  The  Cocheset  Methodist  so- 
ciety was  formed  in  1832.  In  1801  the  Parish  built  the  fourth  meeting-house,  which  is 
now  the  Unitarian  church,  remodelled  in  1847.  Dr.  Reed  was  called  an  able  and  sound 
divine,  and  was  very  much  valued  in  ecclesiastical  councils.  He  was  in  Congress  from 
1795  to  1801,  and  was  a  friend  of  Washington,  who  sometimes  invited  him  to  dinner  and 
seated  him  on  his  right  hand.  Many  years  before  his  death  he  became  blind;  but  he 
continued  to  preach,  and,  with  his  psalm  book  open  in  his  hand,  he  would  recite  a  whole 
versified  Psalm  from  memory,  and  also  the  Scripture  lesson.  He  lived  next  to  Rev.  Mr. 
Perkins's  house,  in  a  house  on  Centre  Street,  which  is  the  third  on  the  left  hand  from 
the  Soldiers'  Monument  on  the  way  to  Westdale. 

William  Baylies  was  the  only  other  Congressman  resident  in  this  Parish.  He  was 
four  years  in  Congress.  He  came  here  in  1799,  was  never  married,  and  died  in  1865.  He 
lived  for  more  than  sixty  years  in  the  Judge  Howard  house  on  South  Street  (see  the 
plate)  which  was  built  in  1797  by  Judge  Daniel  Howard,  who  died  in  1833.  It  was  said 
at  the  time  to  be  the  finest  house  in  the  Bridgewaters.  He  was  at  the  head  of  the  bar  in 
Plymouth,  Bristol,  and  Norfolk  Counties ;  and  his  influence  over  a  jury  was  said  to  be 
greater  than  that  of  any  other  lawyer  of  his  day.  William  Cullen  Bryant,  whose  grand- 
father, Dr.  Philip  Bryant  (died  18 16),  was  a  physician  in  the  North  Parish,  and  whose 
father,  Dr.  Peter,  moved  to  Cummington,  came  back  to  his  ancestral  town,  and  studied 
law  with  Mr.  Baylies  for  more  than  a  year. 

Another  family  of  which  the  descendants  have  been  prominent  is  the  Ames  family. 
Oliver,  who  was  a  manufacturer  of  shovels,  born  in  1777,  moved  to  Easton,  where  his  sons 
and  grandsons  built  up  the  great  shovel  factory,  and  have  been  eminent  in  public  life. 

In  1822  this  West  Parish  became  a  town.  In  1834  Richard  Stone  was  ordained  here 
as  minister,  and  served  till  1842;  but  in  1836  the  society  and  town  were  separated  here  as 
elsewhere  in  the  State,  and  this  First  Parish  Society  was  known  as  the  First  Congrega- 
tional, or  Unitarian,  Society. 

In  1840  the  village  of  Cocheset  began  to  grow  up,  and  the  first  Methodist  church 
was  built  there,  the  second  in  1844.  In  1879  the  Soldiers'  Monument  (see  view  of  "the 
centre")  was  dedicated,  and  in  1889  the  present  Baptist  church.  In  1893  part  of  the 
northern  end  of  the  town  was  ceded  to  Brockton.  In  1S94  the  Grange  Building  was 
erected. 

In  1840  the  population  was  1,201  ;  in  1870,  1,803;  ^^  1890,  1,917.  It  remains  to-day, 
as  it  has  always  been,  a  quiet  agricultural  town,  one  of  the  best  farming  towns  in  the 
county,  with  healthy  air  and  beautiful  scenery. 

Francis  E.  Howard. 


THE  HOWARD  SEMINARY. 

jENJAMIN  BEAL  HOWARD,  a  native  of  West  Bridgewater  and  a  resident 
for  upward  of  sixty  years,  died  in  New  Bedford,  April  3,  1867.  Soon  after 
his  death  it  was  ascertained  that  by  his  will  he  had  left  $80,000  for  the  estab- 
lishing of  a  High  School  or  Seminary  of  Learning  in  West  Bridgewater.  He 
left  this  money  in  the  care  of  eleven  persons,  to  expend  the  income,  but  no  part  of  the 
principal,  in  support  of  the  school.  The  persons  appointed  trustees  were  the  following  : 
Azel  Howard,  Benjamin  Howard,  and  Francis  E.  Howard  (his  three  sons),  John  E.  Howard, 
Otis  Drury,  Austin  Packard,  Pardon  Copeland,  James  Copeland,  George  D.  Ryder, 
Jonathan  C.  Keith,  and  John  M.  Lothrop,  all  of  whom  are  now  deceased  except  Francis 
E.  Howard,  of  West  Bridgewater,  and  John  E.  Howard,  of  Brockton,  the  latter  of  whom 
is  not  a  trustee  now,  having  resigned  December  25,  1875. 

The  present  board  of  trustees  consists  of  Francis  E.  Howard,  president ;  Isaac  N. 
Nutter,  of  East  Bridgewater,  vice-president ;  Benjamin  B.  Howard,  secretary  and  treas- 
urer; Andrew  J.  Bailey,  of  Boston;  the  Rev.  Edward  B.  Maglathlin,  of  North  Easton ; 
Wallace  C.  Keith,  of  Brockton ;  Bradford  Copeland,  Clinton  P.  Howard,  Charles  R. 
Packard,  and  Charles  E.  Tisdale,  of  West  Bridgewater ;  and  there  is  one  vacancy.  In 
April,  1868,  the  trustees  purchased  of  the  late  Mr.  Jonathan  Howard  ten  acres  of  land 
for  ;j!2,50o  on  which  to  erect  the  school  buildings.  In  May,  1875,  the  work  of  building 
was  begun,  and  in  the  following  year  completed.  In  this  year,  1876,  the  late  Otis  Drury 
provided  the  trustees  with  the  bell  now  on  the  Seminary.  At  his  death  he  willed  his 
whole  property,  after  the  death  of  his  widow,  amounting  to  nearly  $70,000,  to  the  Semi- 
nary, of  which  the  interest  only  should  be  expended. 

In  the  fall  of  1875  the  subject  of  a  Girls'  School  was  first  agitated.  In  May,  1883, 
through  the  influence  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Edward  Everett  Hale,  the  trustees  engaged  Miss 
Helen  Magill,  daughter  of  Edward  H.  Magill,  President  of  Swarthmore  College,  Pennsyl- 
vania, to  open  a  Girls'  School,  which  was  called  The  Howard  Collegiate  Institute,  and  to 
continue  in  charge  for  five  years.  During  this  year,  1883,  a  Boarding  Hall,  forty  by 
eighty  feet,  was  built,  which  accommodated  thirty  pupils.  This  is  seen  in  the  pictures,  on 
one  side  of  the  Seminary  Hall,  and  is  known  as  Drury  Hall.  The  school  increased  in 
numbers  and  reputation  to  such  a  degree  that  in  the  summer  of  1885  it  was  necessary  to 
enlarge  this  hall,  so  as  to  accommodate  si.xteen  more  pupils.  In  1887,  after  four  years' 
service.  Miss  Magill  resigned.  The  trustees  engaged  Miss  Emma  O.  Conro,  for  a  year 
previous  assistant  to  Miss  Magill.  She  remained  principal  for  three  years.  In  September, 
1890,  Mr.  Horace  M.  Willard,  formerly  principal  of  Bridgewater  Academy,  was  engaged 
for  one  year;  and  at  his  suggestion  the  name  of  the  school  was  changed  to  Howard  Semi- 
nary. He  was  then  engaged  for  five  years  from  July  i,  1891  ;  and  after  six  years  of 
great  success  he  resigned,  and  was  succeeded  by  Mr.  Ralph  W.  Gifford,  who  after  two 
years  resigned  to  engage  in  another  profession.  He  was  succeeded  by  the  present  prin- 
cipal. Miss  Sarah  E.  Laughton,  in  September,  1898,  whose  administration  for  the  past  year 
has  been  such  as  to  assure  a  larger  attendance,  a  more  extensive  reputation,  and  a  more 
successful  school, 

Francis  E.  Howard, 


EAST  BRUDGEWATER. 

'N  1722  the  inhabitants  of  the  east  end  of  the  North  Precinct  of  Bridgewater 
petitioned  the  legislature  to  be  set  off  as  a  separate  precinct,  stating  "  that 
they  now  look  upon  themselves  as  capable  of  giving  an  honorable  support  to 
a  minister"  ;  and  on  December  14,  1723,  the  East  Precinct  was  incorporated. 
The  settlement  began  early.  Samuel  Allen,  Jr.,  the  first  settler,  is  said  to  have  been 
here  by  1660.  He  built  his  house  on  the  east  side  of  the  Matfield,  near  where  the  Bridge- 
water  Branch  Railroad  crosses  it  to-day,  on  land  of  the  late  John  Lane.  Nicholas  Byram, 
and  his  son-in-law,  Thomas  Whitman,  came  here  in  1662 ;  Robert  Latham,  in  1663  ;  and 
by  1673,  when  their  father,  Arthur  Harris,  made  his  will,  Isaac  and  Samuel  Harris  owned 
lands  on  both  sides  of  Satucket  River,  and  each  had  a  house  on  the  north  side. 

Samuel  Allen,  Jr.,  owned  land  extending  north  from  Matfield  River,  including  the 
eastern  part  of  the  present  village,  the  old  cemetery,  and  the  Common.  Nicholas  Byram 
owned  five  of  the  fifty-four  shares  of  the  original  proprietors,  including  the  west  part  of 
the  village  and  a  large  tract  west  of  Snell  Meadow  brook.  He  built  his  house  just  west 
of  the  brook,  on  or  near  the  spot  where  the  late  Jotham  Hicks  built  the  house  now  stand- 
ing. Thomas  Whitman  owned  the  peninsula  lying  between  the  Satucket  and  Matfield 
Rivers,  including  all  the  lands  now  owned  by  the  sons  of  the  late  Zebina  Keith  and  the 
Carver  Cotton-gin  Company.  The  house  of  Deacon  John  Whitman,  who  died  there  at 
the  age  of  a  hundred  and  seven  years,  stands  on  the  north  side  of  Whitman  Street,  on 
land  owned  by  his  ancestor  Thomas.  Robert  Latham  came  from  Marshfield,  and  became 
the  owner  of  a  very  large  tract  on  the  south  side  of  Satucket  River,  including  a  large  part 
of  what  is  now  commonly  called  Satucket.  It  included  Sachem's  Rock  and  Standish 
Grove,  the  latter  of  which  is  now  the  property  of  the  Bridgewater  Historical  Society. 
Arthur  Harris  and  his  two  sons  owned  land  adjoining  Latham,  on  the  north.  Isaac 
Harris  married  Latham's  daughter.  The  Deacon  Azor  Harris  house,  now  owned  by  his 
son  Arthur,  stands  on  Latham  land ;  it  is  a  hundred  and  fifty-five  years  old,  the  oldest  in 
the  village,  having  been  built  in  1745  by  Robert  Latham,  son  of  Chilton  Latham,  who 
was  the  son  of  the  first  Robert,  and  lived  in  this  house  with  his  son  Robert  six  years 
after  it  was  built,  and  died  in   1751,  aged  eighty. 

From  1660  to  1700  the  population  increased  rapidly.  Joseph  Shaw,  the  ancestor  of 
the  Bridgewater  family,  settled  by  1699  at  what  is  now  known  as  Shaw's  Mills.  His  de- 
scendants are  numerous  and  distinguished.  The  late  Chief  Justice  Lemuel  Shaw  is  of  the 
third  generation,  through  the  Rev.  John,  of  the  South  Parish,  and  his  son,  the  Rev.  Oakes, 
of  Barnstable.  Isaac  Alden,  a  grandson  of  John,  the  Pilgrim,  settled  here  about  1685,  and 
owned  a  large  tract  on  Beaver  Brook,  building  a  house  near  what  is  now  Jones's  Mill,  in 
the  north  part  of  the  present  town.  He  was  a  brother  of  Joseph,  who  settled  in  what  is 
now  Bridgewater,  on  the  south  side  of  Sprague's  Hill.  Elmwood  was  settled  by  Elisha 
Hayward  and  Nathaniel  Hayward,  Jr.,  Jonathan  Hill,  Edward  son  of  Experience 
Mitchell,  who  came  in  the  "Ann"  in   1622,  and  John  Howard. 

During  King  Philip's  war,  in  1676,  this  part  of  the  old  town  suffered  severely.  All 
the  houses  except  that  of  Nicholas  Byram  were  burned  by  the  Indians. 


East  Bridgcwater  13 

Robert  Latham  built  a  saw-mill  on  Satucket  River,  just  below  the  Indian  hening- 
weir,  and  behind  the  old  Benjamin  Harris  house,  now  owned  by  the  heirs  of  Warren  Ben- 
nett. The  dam  of  this  mill  overflowed  the  old  weir,  so  that  it  ceased  to  be  visible 
except  in  times  of  repair,  when  the  water  was  drawn  off.  This  mill  became  the  property 
of  Isaac  Harris,  and  remained  there  till  1726,  when  Isaac  Harris,  Thomas  Whitman,  and 
Jonathan  Bass,  as  partners,  built  a  new  mill  at  what  is  now  the  Carver  Cotton-gin  Com- 
pany's dam.  But  the  new  dam  raised  a  pond,  which  also  covered  the  old  weir,  so  that  for 
many  years  it  has  not  been  seen  until  this  summer  (1899),  when  the  pond  has  been 
drawn  down  for  extensive  repairs.  The  weir,  as  shown  in  one  of  the  plates,  consists  of 
two  low  walls  of  stone,  extending  down  stream  from  each  bank  to  near  the  centre  of  the 
stream,  but  not  quite  meeting.  The  fish  in  going  up  to  their  spawning  grounds  above,  in 
the  spring,  were  obliged  to  pass  through  this  narrow  opening,  where  they  could  be  caught 
by  nets  or  spears  in  great  quantities.  Within  even  the  last  hundred  years  this  river 
supplied  an  abundance  of  alewives,  or  herrings.  Not  until  the  mills  below  began  to  main- 
tain their  dams  at  all  seasons  of  the  year,  did  this  valuable  fishery  perish.  It  may  be 
that  at  no  distant  day,  when  steam  or  electric  power  shall  have  taken  the  place  of  water 
power,  these  waters  may  be  again  stocked  with  fish,  to  the  great  benefit  of  the  people.  If 
such  should  be  the  result,  any  one  who  will  study  the  map  of  Plymouth  County,  and  see 
the  vast  pond  and  water  area,  once  the  spawning  ground  of  the  alewives,  may  be  able  to 
get  some  idea  of  the  immense  supply  of  fish  food  that  could  be  provided  for  the  people. 

Many  of  the  Indians  continued  to  live  here.  Some  of  them  served  in  the  Revolu- 
tionary army,  and  the  last  was  living  here  as  late  as  1843. 

In  1 72 1  a  meeting-house  had  been  begun  on  land  given  by  Samuel  Allen,  Jr.,  appar- 
ently in  anticipation  of  the  legal  organization  of  the  precinct  in  1723.  On  April  14,  1724, 
John  Angier  was  called  "  to  settle  with  them  in  the  work  of  the  ministry  according  to 
the  gospel,"  and  was  ordained  October  28,  1724,  over  a  church  of  thirty-three  members, 
twelve  men  and  twenty-one  women,  which  was  organized  at  the  same  time.  He  was  then 
twenty-three  years  old.  November  23,  1732,  he  married  Mary  Bourne,  of  Sandwich.  His 
house,  now  removed,  stood  on  the  site  of  Mrs.  Millet's  house,  on  the  side  of  the  Common 
opposite  the  Unitarian  church.  His  pastorate  continued  till  his  death,  April  14,  1787,  or 
more  than  sixty-two  years.  The  meeting-house  was  finished  in  time  for  the  ordination. 
It  was  probably  forty  feet  square,  with  sixteen-feet  posts.  There  were  eleven  "pues  "  on 
the  floor  next  the  walls,  an  open  space  in  the  centre  for  long  benches,  and  nine  pews  in 
the  gallery.     The  Indians  were  allowed  to  make  pews  for  themselves  under  the  stairs. 

During  this  ministry  the  parish  grew  in  population,  and  became  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant manufacturing  centres  in  the  State.  There  have  been  no  less  than  twenty-two 
mill  sites  in  the  town,  many  of  them  now  disused.  The  first  mill  was  Robert  Latham's, 
already  mentioned,  possibly  built  as  early  as  1667,  and  removed  in  1726.  Shaw's  Mills, 
so  called,  were  built  before  1700,  probably  consisting  of  grist-mill  and  saw-mill,  and  were 
of  great  use  till  destroyed  by  fire  some  years  ago.  The  old  forge,  built  in  1726  by  Captain 
Jonathan  Bass,  over  the  Salisbury  River,  was  in  constant  use  in  converting  scrap  iron  into 
bars  and  shapes  down  to  1884  or  1885,  when  new  methods  prevailed.  About  1740  Hugh 
Orr,  who  was  born  in  Scotland  in  1717,  erected  mills  on  Matfield  River,  at  the  south  side 
of  the  present  stone  bridge,  and  in  1742  the  house  now  standing  at  Vinton's  corner,  so 
called,  owned  by  William  Vinton,  his  descendant.  In  these  mills  he  ground  grain,  made 
scythes,  axes,  and  other  edged  tools,  muskets,  bored  cannon  for  the  use  of  the  State  dur- 


14  The  Bfidgewater  Book 

ing  the  Revolution,  and  made  machinery  for  carding  and  spinning  and  weaving  cotton  and 
cleaning  flaxseed.  He  was  the  first  man  in  America  to  cast  cannon  solid  and  then  bore 
them  out,  and  his  trip-hammer  shop  was  the  first  of  the  kind  in  this  part  of  the  land.  He 
was  an  active,  skilled,  and  inventive  mechanic,  and  rendered  very  valuable  service  to  his 
community  during  his  long  life  of  sixty  years  in  this  his  adopted  country.  He  died 
December  6,  1798,  aged  eighty-one. 

The  water  power  at  Satucket,  now  owned  by  the  Carver  Company,  has,  since  the  first 
building  of  the  dam  in  1726,  been  in  constant  service  until  the  present  time;  and  to-day 
a  larger,  more  varied,  and  probably  more  profitable  business  is  being  carried  on  than  ever 
before.  On  that  dam,  from  an  early  date  down  to  1872,  when  the  mills  were  burned,  nails 
and  tacks  were  largely  manufactured  by  David  Kingman  and  Zebina  Keith  and  his  sons. 

The  shoe  manufacturing  business,  which  is  now  such  an  enormous  business  in 
Brockton  and  neighboring  towns  in  this  county,  may  be  said  to  have  originated  in  this 
town.  In  Elmwood  Village,  on  the  Mitchell  farm,  just  south  of  the  bridge  on  the  west 
side  of  the  road,  the  son,  grandson,  and  great-grandsons  carried  on  the  business  of  tanning 
and  currying  leather.  The  writer  of  this  article  well  remembers  the  time  when  tanning 
was  done  there.     And  it  dates  back  to  1700. 

In  1822  Cushing  Mitchell  and  Seth  Bryant,  the  former  a  grandson  and  the  latter  a 
great-grandson  of  Colonel  Edward  Mitchell,  who  succeeded  Ensign  Edward  Mitchell,  his 
father,  in  the  tannery  business  in  Elmwood,  formed  a  partnership  under  the  name  of 
Mitchell  &  Bryant,  and  commenced  the  manufacture  there  of  "  sale  shouse,"  as  they 
were  called  in  distinction  from  custom  shoes.  They  conducted  a  large  business,  for  the 
time,  down  to  the  panic  of  1837,  when  they  met  with  financial  disaster.  Mr.  Bryant 
afterward  conducted  the  business  there,  and  during  the  Civil  War  made  sewed  shoes  for 
the  army  successfully  and  in  large  quantities. 

In  1754  the  second  meeting-house  was  completed.  It  was  fifty-six  feet  by  forty-five, 
and  twenty-two  feet  high.  It  was  built  east  of  the  old  house,  which  was  allowed  to  stand 
till  the  new  house  was  ready.  Hugh  Orr  purchased  the  old  house  and  used  the  lumber 
to  build  his  mill  on  the  Matfield  River,  in  which  he  bored  and  finished  cannon  during  the 
Revolution.     In  1764  there  were  142  houses,  157  families,  and  959  population. 

In  1767,  December  23,  Samuel  Angier,  son  of  the  Rev.  John,  was  ordained  colleague 
pastor;  and  after  his  father's  death  in  1787  he  continued  in  service  till  his  death,  Jan.  18, 
1805,  at  the  age  of  sixty-one,  after  thirty-eight  years'  ministry. 

During  his  ministry  the  third  or  present  meeting-house  was  built,  in  1795,  on  the 
site  of  the  first  house,  sixty-eight  feet  by  fifty-four,  and  twenty-eight  feet  high.  It  stood 
broadside  to  the  street,  with  a  spire  at  the  west  end  and  a  porch  at  the  east  end,  both 
containing  stairways  to  the  galleries ;  and  with  three  entrances,  one  in  the  middle  of  the 
long  front,  which  opened  on  a  broad  aisle,  and  the  others  at  the  two  ends  opening  on  the 
cross  aisle.  The  pulpit  with  its  sounding-board  and  the  deacons'  seats  in  front  of 
the  pulpit  were  in  the  centre  of  the  north,  or  rear,  side  of  the  house.  In  1850  the  house 
was  turned  one-quarter  round,  so  that  the  steeple  is  at  the  front,  with  a  somewhat  en- 
larged porch.  The  other  porch  was  removed,  the  pulpit  placed  where  this  porch  once 
stood,  all  the  old  pews  removed  and  the  present  pews  put  in.  The  second  house  stood 
till  the  third  was  occupied  ;  and  it  was  then  sold  to  General  Sylvanus  Lazell,  who  some 
years  afterward  used  the  old  material  in  the  erection  of  his  mansion  in  1799,  now  the 
picturesque  home  of  Mr.  Henry  Ilobart.     And  it  is  supposed  that  some  of  the  lumber 


ELMWOOD 


f;p5t    i^Au;:;:i 


/     1 

--,  - 

■j;jgrii  raKfe->.-:-^  -ii 


3ACHEiM       ROCK 


tA^T     BRIDQEV/ATCR 


East  Bridgewater  15 

was  used  about  1820  in  building  a  house  for  his  grandson,  Sylvanus  Lazell  Mitchell, 
pictured  as  the  "Judge  Harris  House"  in  the  plate.  But  this  house  has  been  much 
changed  and  enlarged. 

In  1806  James  Flint  was  ordained  the  fourth  minister  of  the  parish,  and  in  1821  was 
called  to  Salem.  Benjamin  Fessenden  immediately  succeeded  him,  resigning  in  1825. 
John  A.  Williams  was  minister  from  1826  to  1828,  and  Eliphalet  P.  Crafts  from  1828  to 
1836,  when  parishes  and  towns  were  finally  separated  throughout  the  State,  and  all  relig- 
ious societies  put  on  an  equal  footing.  In  1824  the  congregation  that  still  worshipped 
in  the  old  meeting-house  was  authorized  by  the  legislature  to  be  called  "  The  First  Parish 
in  East  Bridgewater."  In  1826  the  Union  Trinitarian  Society  was  formed,  which  is  now 
known  as  the  Union  Church  and  Society;  in  1831,  the  New  Jerusalem;  in  1850,  the  first 
Methodist;  and  in  1862  the  Catholic  congregation  was  gathered. 

But  in  1823,  June  14,  the  parish  was  incorporated  as  a  town,  having  then  a  popula- 
tion of  about  1,500;  and  the  seclusion  of  such  a  country  town  seventy-six  years  ago  may 
be  judged  from  the  fact  that  mails  and  stages  went  to  Boston  three  times  only  in  a  week. 

From  1827  to  about  1843  the  water  power  at  Satucket  was  used  for  the  weaving  of 
cotton  cloth.  Since  1S43  the  present  owners  have  manufactured  cotton-gins  on  a  large 
scale.  Since  the  fire  of  1872,  which  destroyed  nearly  all  the  old  structures,  new  mills 
have  been  built  and  new  industries  have  been  introduced.  Linter-gins,  used  in  removing 
the  lint  from  cotton-seed  to  prepare  it  for  the  machinery  used  in  extracting  oil  from  the 
seed,  are  largely  manufactured  by  this  company  under  their  own  exclusive  patents.  They 
also  manufacture  shoe  machinery  of  many  kinds  and  many  articles  requiring  fine  mechan- 
ical skill.  It  is  now  the  most  important  manufacturing  company  in  town,  and  furnishes 
constant  employment  to  a  large  force  of  first-class  workmen. 

For  many  years  dating  back  before  the  Revolution  a  slitting  and  rolling-mill  situated 
below  Orr's  Works  on  Matfield  River,  was  carried  on  by  David  &  George  Keith,  and  by 
Levi  Keith  &  Sons.  In  1835  new  mills  were  erected,  and  the  business  greatly  en- 
larged. The  mills  passed  from  the  old  firm  into  the  hands  of  Rogers  &  Sheldon,  who 
manufactured  nails  and  rolled  bar  iron  into  plates.  This  firm  did  a  large  and  profitable 
business  until  their  mills  were  burned.  This  was  soon  after  the  great  change  took  place 
in  iron  manufactures  in  this  country,  when  the  newly  discovered  processes  of  rapidly  and 
cheaply  converting  pig  iron  into  homogeneous  iron,  or  mild  steel,  as  it  was  called,  were 
taking  the  place  of  the  old  processes  in  use  by  the  firm  up  to  that  time.  This  fine  water 
privilege  is  now  idle.  May  it  not,  at  some  future  day,  be  utilized  in  the  production  of 
electric  power,  light,  and  heat  for  the  people  ? 

The  population  has  risen  from  about  1,500  in  1823  to  2,894  in  State  census  of  1895, 
having  lost,  by  the  annexation  of  portions  of  its  territory  to  Whitman  and  Brockton  in 
187s,  about  300  of  its  population. 

In  1874  the  Soldiers'  Monument  was  dedicated,  and  in  1897  the  Washburn  Library. 

The  two  towns  of  Bridgewater  and  East  Bridgewater  are  abundantly  supplied  with 
water  of  great  purity  from  springs  and  from  wells  drilled  into  the  granite  rock  from  one 
hundred  to  two  hundred  feet  deep,  on  the  south  side  of  Sprague's  Hill  in  Bridgewater. 

Benjamin  W.  Harris. 


NORTH  BRIDGEWATER   AND  BROCKTON. 

HE  last  settled  portion  of  the  original  town  of  Bridgewater  was  the  north  part, 
where  there  was  no  permanent  settlement  till  after  1700.  The  interests  of 
the  settlers  were  all  concentrated  at  the  old  centre,  where  they  resorted  for 
worship  and  also  for  such  other  privileges  as  were  common  to  the  whole 
population.  During  1737  they  built  a  meeting-house  in  the  hopes  that  a  larger  number 
could  enjoy  religious  privileges  by  having  a  house  nearer  home,  and,  accordingly, 
Robert  Howard  and  fifty-four  others  petitioned  the  legislature  to  incorporate  them  into 
a  separate  town  ;  but  they  were  granted  only  an  incorporation  as  a  parish,  by  the  name  of 
the  North  Parish  of  Bridgewater,  January  3,  1738.  The  first  parish  meeting  was  held 
February  5,  1739;  and  in  December  John  Porter,  of  Abington,  was  asked  to  preach 
as  a  candidate.  In  1740,  a  church  was  organized,  under  the  name  of  the  Fourth 
Church  in  Bridgewater;  and  on  October  15  Mr.  Porter  was  ordained.  His  qualifications, 
both  natural  and  acquired,  were  remarkable.  Much  that  was  estimable  in  his  Christian 
character  he  gratefully  ascribed,  under  God,  to  the  labors  of  that  justly  celebrated  and 
useful  servant  of  Christ,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Whitefield,  under  whose  ministry  of  the  word  he 
received  the  most  deep  and  salutary  impressions  a  little  before  his  ordination.  He  had 
formed  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Whitefield,  invited  him  to  his  pulpit,  and 
enjoyed  the  benefit  of  his  instruction.  He  wielded  the  sword  of  the  spirit  with  great 
skill,  vigor  and  success,  though  never  fond  of  controversy.  He  was  distinguished  for  his 
prudence  and  fidelity,  exemplary  life  and  holy  conversation.  He  continued  to  preach 
for  sixty  years,  when  in  1800,  feeling  the  infirmities  of  age,  he  called  for  a  colleague. 
He  died  March  12,  1802,  eighty-seven  years  old.  To  the  influence  of  this  good  man 
more  than  any  other  thing,  is  the  community  indebted  for  the  love  of  order,  industry, 
economy,  enterprise,  and  religious  character  of  many  of  the  descendants  of  that  society. 
His  influence  had  much  to  do  with  the  formation  of  the  character  of  the  early  inhabi- 
tants of  this  parish. 

The  first  meeting-house  was  a  small,  plain  structure,' in  keeping  with  the  times, 
facing  south,  without  steeple,  bell  or  chimney.  It  was  on  the  site  of  the  present  stone 
church  of  the  First  Congregational  Society.  The  windows  had  diamond-shaped  glass. 
The  walls  were  plastered,  but  there  was  no  stove ;  for,  till  the  present  century,  the  meet- 
ing-houses were  never  warmed,  except  as  small  foot-stoves  were  often  used  by  the 
women.  The  usual  practice  in  building  churches  then  was  to  finish  the  inside  and  sell 
"  pew  room,"  or  sections  of  the  floor,  which  each  purchaser  would  finish  to  suit  himself. 
These  pews  were  usually  six  to  eight  feet  front  and  five  or  five  and  a  half  feet  deep.  The 
unmarried  men  and  women  were  generally  put  into  separate  pews  in  the  centre,  and  there 
was  a  partition  between  the  men's  and  the  women's  front  gallery. 

In  1763  the  second  meeting-house  was  built  of  the  same  size  as  the  house  of  the 
South  Parish,  and  the  belfry  was  twelve  feet  square  and  eighty-five  feet  high.  A  bell  was 
bought  in  1764.  In  1772  a  choir  was  formed  for  the  first  time,  and  the  south  part  of  the 
women's  gallery  was  assigned  to  them;  in  1775  the  north  part  was  assigned;  and  in  1801 


North  Bridgfcwatcr  and  Brockton  17 

"surkerler"  seats  were  built  in  front  of  the  gallery  for  the  choir.  The  negroes  were 
seated  in  a  loft  provided  for  the  purpose  ;  but  in  1800  there  was  much  feeling  because  "  the 
blacks  "  intruded  into  the  white  folks'  pews.  They  were  then  shifted  about  into  different 
galleries.  Efforts  were  made  in  1818-19  to  induce  the  parish  to  put  a  stove  into  the 
house,  as  other  parishes  were  doing;  but  the  opposition  was  too  strong.  In  1822  the 
south  part  of  the  east  gallery  was  voted  "  for  the  use  of  the  young  women,"  who  seemed 
to  have  been  put  by  themselves.     In  1827  the  house  was  taken  down. 

In  1764  the  population  was  only  833,  less  than  any  of  the  other  parishes.  There  were 
131  families  and  120  houses. 

In  1800,  October  15,  Asa  Meech,  the  second  minister  of  this  parish,  was  ordained 
as  colleague  with  Mr.  Porter,  and  preached  till  181 1,  when  he  resigned.  In  1812, 
October  18,  Daniel  Huntington  was  ordained;  but  on  account  of  ill  health  he  re- 
signed in  1833,  and  lived  in  New  London,  Conn.,  till  1840,  when  he  was  called  to  the 
South  Church  in  Campello.  Mr.  Huntington  was  of  generous  sympathies,  extremely 
modest,  of  pleasing  aspect  in  voice  and  manner,  of  genial  humor  and  good  judgment, 
affable,  courteous  and  true,  a  clear,  logical  and  earnest  preacher.  He  was  greatly  be- 
loved by  all  his  household,  and  was  distinguished  above  most  others  in  his  consolation  to 
the  afflicted  and  bereaved.  In  all  the  churches  where  he  was  called  for  advice  he  had  the 
confidence  and  respect  of  all.     He  died  at  New  London,  Conn.,  May  21,  1858. 

In  1 8 16  the  first  post-office  in  this  part  of  Bridgewater  was  opened.  In  18 18  the 
wife  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Huntington  gathered  the  first  Sunday-school.  About  1820  the  first 
public  stage  ran  through  the  place.  In  182 1  this  parish  was  incorporated  as  the  town  of 
North  Bridgewater.  In  1827  the  parish  built  its  third  meeting-house.  The  "three  east- 
erly pews  in  the  north  gallery  "  were  "  reserved  for  young  women,"  and  the  "  south-west 
and  north-west  pews  "  "  for  the  people  of  colour."  In  the  same  year  the  New  Jerusalem 
Society  was  organized,  and  in  1831  the  first  Methodist.  In  1833,  September  18,  William 
Thompson  was  ordained  minister  of  the  parish  society,  and  was  dismissed  in  1834  to  fill 
a  professorship.  In  1835,  October  i,  Paul  Couch  was  installed  as  his  successor,  and 
preached  here  for  twenty-four  years,  till  1859.  He  possessed  the  highest  type  of  mental 
culture,  was  sincere,  earnest  and  fearless,  of  ready  sympathy  for  the  afflicted,  so  that  his 
presence  was  a  benediction  to  every  home.  As  a  preacher,  he  was  forcible  in  manner,  and 
of  great  freedom  and  candor.  In  the  year  of  his  installation  it  was  voted  to  put  stoves 
into  the  meeting-house  for  the  first  time.  But  in  1836  this  society  ceased  to  be  the 
parish  society  of  North  Bridgewater,  when  State  and  Church  were  finally  separated  in 
Massachusetts  ;  and  it  took  its  place  as  only  the  First  Congregational  Society.  In  the 
same  year  the  South  Congregational  Society  was  formed  in  what  is  now  Campello  and  a 
church  was  built,  which  was  replaced  in  1S54  by  the  present  church;  and  in  1S42  the 
Central  Methodist  Society  was  formed. 

In  1845  the  railroad  to  Boston  was  opened,  which  greatly  increased  the  business 
facilities  of  the  town.  In  1850  the  Porter  Evangelical  and  First  Baptist  Societies  were 
formed,  and  built  houses  of  worship;  and  the  southern  part  of  the  town,  which  had  long 
been  known  as  "  Plain  Village,"  had  a  post-office  established,  and  began  to  be  known  as 
Campello,  a  name  which  means  "a  little  plain,"  and  was  suggested  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Hunt- 
ington, then  pastor  of  the  South  Congregational  Church.  In  1853  a  destructive  fire  visited 
Campello,  which  materially  checked  the  growth  of  the  place.  In  1854  the  First  Congre- 
gational Society  built  their  fourth  house  of  worship,  which  was  burned  in   1S94;  and  the 


1 8  The  Bridgfcwatcf  Book 

present  stone  church  was  built  in  1898.  In  1856  the  Catholic  congregation  was  organ- 
ized with  a  settled  pastor,  and  built  a  church  in  1S59.  I"  1857  the  Universalist  Society 
was  organized,  and  in  1863  built  its  church.  In  1859  gas-light  was  introduced  into  the 
town.  In  1 87 1  the  first  Episcopal  services  were  held,  and  St.  Paul's  Church  was  organ- 
ized. In  the  same  year  the  Board  of  Trade  was  formed,  "in  order  to  promote  the 
efficiency  and  e.xtend  the  usefulness  of  the  business  men  of  North  Bridgewater." 

In  1874  the  town  took  the  name  of  Brockton,  and  within  the  next  ten  years  the  pop- 
ulation nearly  doubled.  In  1881  it  was  incorporated  as  a  city.  In  i8io  the  population 
was  1,354;  in  1820  it  was  1,480,  second  to  the  South  Parish  only  among  the  Bridge- 
waters;  in  1830  it  was  1,953,  larger  than  the  other  Bridgewaters  ;  in  i860  it  was  6,384  ; 
in  1880  it  was  13,608,  with  2,662  houses  and  2,999  families.     It  is  now  about  33,000. 

The  question  is  often  asked,  Why  has  this  city  gone  forward  with  such  rapid  strides  ? 
The  reply  would  lead  us  back  to  the  early  settlement  of  the  North  Parish.  A  writer  ob- 
served many  years  since  that  among  the  influences  to  which  the  descendants  of  the  early 
inhabitants  were  indebted  for  the  love  of  order,  industry,  economy,  enterprise  and  relig- 
ious character  of  her  people,  might  be  mentioned  the  unanimity  between  pastor  and 
people,  and  a  working  together  for  the  common  good. 

In  some  portions  of  the  old  parish  there  was  found  iron  ore,  the  making  of  which 
into  various  kinds  of  implements  gave  employment  to  a  large  number  of  people.  James 
and  Luke  Perkins  made  muskets,  small  anchors,  scythes,  shovels,  plough  points,  etc.,  at 
the  trip-hammer  or  "water  shop,"  near  Salisbury  Heights,  well  known  as  Sprague's  or 
Factory  Village.  In  1813  a  mill  was  erected  for  manufacturing  cotton  and  woollen  goods. 
Hollow  ware  was  made  at  Howard  Mill,  on  what  is  now  Belmont  Street.  The  works  were 
afterward  used  for  the  manufacture  of  shoe  tools.  Sidney  Perkins  made  hay  forks  and 
manure  forks;  and  the  Easton  Brothers  made  spikes,  adzes,  plane-irons,  etc.,  near  Pleasant 
Street.  About  1790  carding  and  fulling  mills  were  built  on  Salisbury  River,  where 
since  that  time  all  kinds  of  ship-work  were  made.  Of  late  years  the  works  at  this  place 
have  been  enlarged ;  and  the  manufacturing  of  small  nails,  tacks,  shoe-nails,  etc.,  are  car- 
ried on  largely.  Much  has  also  been  done  in  early  times  in  the  tannery  business.  The 
first  grist-mill  in  this  town  is  now  known  as  the  Packard  Mill,  which  was  for  a  long  time 
in  charge  of  the  "  Honest  Miller,"  Deacon  Zenas  Packard.  The  rivers  of  the  town  fur- 
nish power  for  many  kinds  of  business.  This  place  long  held  the  reputation  of  making 
the  best  kind  of  shoe  tools,  hammers,  knives,  spoke-shaves,  pegging  and  sewing  needles, 
shoe-pegs,  lasts,  etc.  It  has  always  taken  the  lead  in  supplying  every  kind  of  goods  to 
the  surrounding  towns.  The  first  to  give  push  to  that  line  of  trade  were  William  F. 
Brett,  in  1834,  William  H.  White,  and  in  1844  the  Hon.  Henry  W.  Robinson,  who  was  for 
over  fifty  years  in  business.  A  large  furniture  manufacturing  business  was  conducted 
by  Josiah  W.  Kingman  at  Campello  from  1825  to  1853,  when  the  establishment  was 
burnt,  and  for  a  long  time  from  1829,  at  the  centre,  by  Messrs.  Howard  &  Clark. 

But  the  principal  industry  of  Brockton  is  the  manufacture  of  shoes,  and  a  large  num- 
ber of  manufacturers  have  acquired  wealth  in  this  business. 

A  yearly  Agricultural  Fair  is  held  here,  said  to  be  the  most  flourishing  in  the  State, 
if  not  in  New  England. 

The  reader  is   referred   to   Kingman's    History  of   North    Bridgewater    (1866)    and 

History  of  Brockton  (1884)  for  further  details. 

Bradford  Kingman. 


i 


BRTOGEWATER. 

HE  Duxbury  people,  who  settled  about  1650  in  what  is  now  West  Bridgewater, 
took  up  more  land  about  1665  further  down  the  river  to  the  south  ;  and  pretty 
early  the  Leonard,  Washburn,  and  Edson  farms  included  the  land  now  covered 
by  the  village  of  Bridgewater.  The  first  of  these,  owned  by  the  sons  of  Solo- 
mon Leonard,  was  where  Main  Street  now  runs ;  the  second,  owned  by  John  Washburn 
and  his  sons,  lay  below  the  line  where  South  Street  now  runs ;  and  the  Edson  farm  was 
where  Pleasant  Street  now  runs,  extending  nearly  to  Scotland. 

On  account  of  the  Indians  few  other  families  came.  But  King  Philip's  War  ended  in 
1676,  and  the  security  that  followed  drew  many  new  families.  The  neighborhood  called 
Scotland  was  early  settled  by  the  Fobeses  and  Keiths,  who  were  Scotch, —  this  fact  proba- 
bly suggesting  the  name  of  the  place, —  and  by  the  Bassetts  and  Leaches.  Soon  after  the 
war,  Josiah  Edson,  a  son  of  Deacon  Samuel,  built  a  large  house  on  the  way  to  Scotland. 
He  was  known  as  "old  Justice  Edson,"  and  was  the  most  important  man  in  this  part  of 
the  town,  owning  much  land  and  doing  much  business.  His  son.  Captain  Josiah,  was  also 
an  important  man ;  and  a  grandson,  Colonel  Josiah,  controlled  the  trade  of  this  neighbor- 
hood, owning  the  store  at  the  corner  of  Main  Street,  which  had  previously  been  estab- 
lished by  others.  By  1700  the  population  had  much  increased,  and  the  main  roads  of 
the  present  Bridgewater  had  been  laid  out.  In  1692  the  whole  town,  with  the  rest  of  the 
Old  Colony,  was  joined  to  Massachusetts,  from  which  many  settlers  had  already  come. 

For  nearly  a  hundred  and  sixty  years,  till  1822,  the  people  went  to  town-meetings  in 
what  is  now  West  Bridgewater,  the  old  centre  of  the  town ;  and  for  fifty  years  they  at- 
tended Sunday  services  at  the  same  place,  till  1716,  when  this  southern  part  of  the  town 
was  organized  as  the  South  Parish  for  church  and  school  purposes,  and  a  meeting-house 
was  built  near  the  site  of  the  present  First  Parish,  or  Unitarian,  church,  the  Rev.  James 
Keith  preaching  the  dedication  sermon,  August  14,  1717.  The  house  was  forty-three 
feet  by  thirty-eight,  without  tower  or  belfry.  A  low  partition  up  the  centre  separated 
the  men  and  women,  who  sat  on  very  rude  benches ;  and  the  deacons  sat  in  front  of 
the  pulpit,  facing  the  people.  August  18,  the  First  Church  in  this  parish,  of  more  than 
fifty  members,  was  organized.  Benjamin  Allen  was  immediately  engaged  to  preach,  and 
on  July  9,  1718,  was  formally  settled.  He  probably  lived  in  the  Edson-Lazell  house,  now 
occupied  by  Miss  Clara  Washburn,  or  certainly  very  near  this  site.  After  thirteen  years 
he  was  released  by  a  council  in  1730,  and  was  afterward  settled  in  Maine,  dying  there 
in  1764. 

In  173 1  began  the  long  and  honored  ministry  of  John  Shaw,  a  Bridgewater  boy,  born 
in  the  East  Parish,  and  dying  in  1791,  at  the  age  of  eighty-two,  after  sixty  years'  service. 
His  influence  was  soon  felt  in  various  innovations,  such  as  the  introduction  of  many  new 
psalm  tunes  in  1732.  There  was  no  choir  till  about  1788;  and  the  hymns  were  read  by 
a  deacon  in  front  of  the  pulpit,  each  line  being  read  and  then  sung  before  the  next  line 
was  sung,  a  custom  which  lasted  till  1760.  In  1741  the  meeting-house  was  enlarged. 
In  1760  a  new  house  was  built,  sixty-four  feet  by  fifty,  in  the  usual  shape  and  style  of  such 


The  Bridgcwater  Book 


buildings  then.  It  was  of  nearly  the  size  of  the  present  Unitarian  church,  which  is 
seventy  feet  long,  but  the  length  of  it  was  at  right  angles  to  the  length  of  the  present 
church.  The  main  entrance  was  through  the  porch  on  the  east  side,  where  the  spire  now 
is,  and  the  pulpit  was  on  the  west  side.  Tiie  tower  was  on  the  north  end,  where  there  was 
another  entrance.  (See  the  cut  below.)  It  was  enlarged  in  1810,  and  was  used  for  eighty- 
five  years,  till  1845.  The  first  meeting- 
house was  like  it,  but  had  no  tower  and 
was  smaller.  In  1764  this  parish  had 
162  houses,  173  families,  and  1,056 
people,  more  than  either  of  the  other 
three  parishes.  In  1740  Mr.  Shaw 
built  what  is  still  known  as  the  Shaw 
house,  where  he  fitted  boys  for  college 
and  young  men  for  the  ministry.  His 
son,  Dr.  Samuel  Shaw,  the  doctor  of 
the  parish,  occupied  it  afterward  ;  and 
then  a  grandson,  John  A.  Shaw,  the 
famous  teacher,  who  added  the  broad 
roof  and  the  tower,  and  lived  there 
till  his  death  in  1874. 
During  the  eighteenth  century  all  the  country  towns  were  quiet  farming  towns.  The 
scattered  houses  were  mostly  low,  brown  cottages,  and  probably  some  of  the  primitive  log 
houses  still  remained.  The  name  of  "city,"  which  is  still  given  to  a  small  group  of 
houses  in  the  south-west  of  the  town,  seems  to  have  originated  in  the  building  of  some 
two-storied  houses  there,  which  the  neighbors  said  was  getting  "  rather  citified."  In  the 
present  village  the  Shaw,  Edson,  Withington,  and  Washburn  houses,  and  a  part  of  the 
Revere  house,  are  all  that  survive  from  the  last  century.  There  were  probably  very  few 
buildings  near  the  meeting-house  and  the  store,  besides  these  houses.  Even  as  late  as 
1810  there  were  barely  a  dozen  houses  in  this  village.  The  Edson  house  was  probably 
built  by  Joseph  Leonard,  on  the  old  Leonard  farm,  soon  after  1700,  and  is  the  oldest 
building  in  the  village.  Soon  after  1732  Colonel  Josiah  Edson  occupied  it.  He  was  a 
Tory ;  and,  when  the  Revolution  broke  out,  he  went  to  Boston.  His  property  was  confis- 
cated in  1783,  and  was  bought  by  Isaac  Lazell,  afterward  known  as  Major,  who  lived  in 
the  Edson  house.  With  his  brother  Nathan,  who  lived  in  what  is  now  a  part  of  the 
Revere  house,  he  kept  the  store  for  many  years.  With  them  the  Lazell  family  first  ap- 
peared here.  The  Withington  house  on  South  Street,  now  occupied  by  Mr.  Avery  F. 
Hooper,  was  built  before  1765.  The  Washburn  house  (seen  on  the  left-hand  foreground 
of  the  upper  picture  of  Summer  Street),  now  Mr.  O.  B.  Cole's,  was  built  about  1776  by 
Captain  Abraham  Washburn,  an  officer  in  the  Revolutionary  War,  and  stands  on  the  origi- 
nal John  Washburn  farm,  now  covered  by  the  village  east  of  South  Street  and  the  Com- 
mon. There  are  but  three  of  the  name  who  still  retain  any  portion  of  it, —  Mr.  Clinton 
Washburn  and  sister,  and  Miss  Hannah  A.  Washburn,  who  lives  opposite  the  old  family 
home,  and  who  has  contributed  this  account:  "In  1716  John  Washburn  and  his  wife 
Rebecca  (great-grand-parents  of  the  Revolutionary  Captain  Abraham)  gave  the  land  for 
the  old  graveyard,  the  Unitarian  church,  and  the  beautiful  green  in  front  of  it.  They  are 
both  buried  near  the  western  corner  of  the  graveyard.     Most  of  the  old  large  trees  in 


Bfidgcwatcr 


21 


town  were  set  out  by  Colonel  Abram  (grandson  of  Captain  Abraham),  who  brought  two 
hundred  of  them,  when  very  small,  from  Vermont  in  his  chaise-box.  They  are  mostly 
maple  and  ash,  with  a  few  bass.  Those  who  love  the  white  water-lily,  which  is  so  abund- 
ant in  Carver's  Pond,  will  like  to  know  that  it  was  planted  there  by  Colonel  Abram.  The 
roots  were  brought  by  him  from  Halifax  Pond.  He  gave  to  the  State  the  half  of  the 
present  Normal  grounds  that  fronts  on  School  Street.  There  have  been  two  governors 
of  the  name  of  Washburn,  who  were  descendants  of  this  family  ;  and  the  three  Washburn 
brothers  who  were  in  Congress  at  the  same  time  also  trace  their  ancestry  to  the  same 
source." 

The  only  manufacturing  in  this  century  was  the  iron  business,  on  the  site  of  the 
present  Iron  Works,  begun  in  a  small  way  in  1707,  where  David  Perkins  had  previously 
opened  a  blacksmith's  shop  and  built  a  dam  in  the  river;  but  the  business  declined  till 
the  time  of  the  Revolution,  when  it  rapidly  increased. 

Early  in  Mr.  Shaw's  ministry  the  parish  lost  a  good  deal  of  its  membership  by  the 
organization  of  the  Titicut  Parish  in  1743,  when  the  south-west  part  of  the  South  Parish 
was  joined  to  a  part  of  Middleboro,  the  meeting-house  being  in  North  Middleboro.  This 
was  a  consequence  of  the  "  New  Light "  controversy,  following  the  famous  revival  all 
through  New  England  in  1740,  which  was  called  the  "great  awakening."  The  preaching 
of  Whitefield  and  his  friends,  and  of  Edwards,  Hopkins,  and  Bellamy,  had  made  a  deep  im- 
pression, and  led  to  much  discussion.  The  Old  Lights  were  the  conservative  party,  who 
wished  to  maintain  the  old  laws  of  the  State  which  enforced  church  attendance,  taxed 
every  one  for  the  support  of  the  parish  ministers,  and  gave  special  privileges  to  them  ;  this 
party  favored  the  old-fashioned  religious  methods  also.  The  New  Lights  were  the  radicals 
of  their  time,  who  aimed  at  a  complete  separation  of  Church  and 
State  by  a  voluntary  system  of  church  support,  such  as  was  finally 
adopted  in  1836,  favored  the  new  revival  methods,  and  urged  the 
employment  of  any  successful  preachers,  even  though  not  college- 
educated,  as  the  parish  clergy  always  were  at  that  time. 

In  1756  Solomon  Reed  was  ordained  parish  minister  of  Titicut, 
and  served  twenty-eight  years,  till  his  death  in  1785.  David  Gurney 
succeeded  him  from  1787  to  181 5,  and  Philip  Colby  from  18 17  to  185 1. 
In  1823  the  part  of  the  Titicut  parish  which  originally  belonged  to 
Bridgewater  was  reunited. 

In  1788  Zedekiah  Sanger,  afterward  made  a  Doctor  of  Divinity, 
was  called  from  his  settlement  in  Duxbury,  and  installed  as  colleague 
to  Mr.  Shaw,  who  died  three  years  later.  He  was  minister  for  thirty- 
two  years,  till  his  death  in  1820,  at  the  age  of  seventy-two.  He  lived 
in  a  house  on  Plymouth  Street,  which  is  now  Mr.  Stetson's  farm-house,  and  where  now 
the  corner  of  Spring  Street  is.  Like  Mr.  Shaw,  he  educated  young  men  for  college  and 
for  the  ministry.  His  salary  was  ^400  and  twenty  cords  of  wood.  For  two  years  he  was 
master  of  the  Academy,  built  in  1799,  on  the  site  of  the  present  Inn,  with  a  yard  ex- 
tending where  the  lower  part  of  the  Common  now  is.  Dr.  Sanger's  ministry,  beginning 
just  after  the  Revolution  and  continuing  for  several  years  after  the  War  of  1812,  saw  the 
development  of  this  parish  from  a  quiet  farming  community  to  an  important  manufactur- 
ing and  educational  centre.  In  1783  the  Iron  Works  had  revived,  under  the  energetic 
management  of  the  Lazells.     In   1S02  a  second  store,  now  Crane  &  Burrill's,  was  opened 


Iron  Works  Bell. 


22  The  Bridgcwater  Book 

by  Edward  Mitchell  and  others  where  there  had  been  a  blacksmith's  shop,  oppo- 
site the  first  store.  In  1805-6,  chiefly  by  the  influence  of  General  Sylvanus  Lazell  of 
East  Bridgewater,  the  Boston  and  New  Bedford  turnpike  was  laid  out,  passing  through 
what  are  now  Broad  and  Bedford  Streets,  which  were  then  opened ;  and  this  parish  was 
thus  placed  in  the  direct  line  of  all  travel  and  business  between  these  two  important  sea- 
coast  towns,  lying  about  half-way.  In  18 10  this  parish  had  1,234  people,  an  increase  of 
only  177  people  in  forty-si.\  years.  The  large  and  continuous  emigration  to  Western  Mas- 
sachusetts, New  Hampshire,  and  Vermont,  and 
afterward  to  Maine,  accounts  for  this.  But  in 
1815  the  iron  business  became  prosperous  here, 
especially  after  the  railroad  was  opened  in 
1846;  and  till  1 870  it  continued  so,  very  much 
enriching  the  town.  Business  and  population 
increased  ;  and  when  the  North,  West,  and  East 
Parishes  were  set  apart  and  incorporated  as 
towns,  in  1821-23,  this  parish  inherited  the 
Part  of  the  Pratt  Tavern.  name  and  traditions  of  the  ancient  town,  and,  as 

Bridgewater,  it  began  to  take  on  its  present 
aspect.  Hitherto  the  town  was  not  only  thinly  settled,  but  also  bare  of  shade-trees;  but 
from  this  time  and  especially  about  1847,  largely  by  the  influence  of  Williams  Latham, 
the  present  trees,  which  make  our  streets  remarkably  beautiful,  were  set  out.  The 
present  Inn  was  built  in  1827  by  Captain  Abram  Washburn.  The  third  story  was  added 
in  1846.  It  was  kept  for  a  while  by  Captain  Asa  Pratt,  who  since  about  1800  had 
kept  the  Pratt  tavern,  to  which  he  soon  returned,  though  he  no  longer  kept  it  as  a  tavern. 
This  was  at  the  head  of  Pleasant  Street,  on  the  road  to  Scotland,  built  about  1779,  and 
was  long  a  popular  place  of  resort  from  all  parts  of  the  town.  The  last  remnant  was 
taken  down  in  1898.  In  1822  the  Common  was  laid  out,  but  was  not  fenced  in  for  a 
while  ;  and  the  second  Academy  was  built  on  the  present  site,  the  land  being  given  by 
the  heirs  of  Major  Isaac  Lazell.  It  was  taken  down  in  1868,  and  replaced  by  the  third 
Academy  (see  the  picture  of  the  "old  Academy"),  which  was  enlarged  in  1898  to  its 
present  shape. 

In  1821  Richard  Manning  Hodges  was  ordained  as  the  fourth  minister  of  the  old 
parish,  and  resigned  in  1833.  Soon  after  he  was  settled  here,  in  1823,  he  abolished  the 
old-time  custom  of  the  congregation  rising  and  standing  when  the  minister  came  in  and 
went  out.  During  Dr.  Sanger's  ministry  nearly  all  the  families  in  the  parish  attended 
the  old  church;  and  the  only  other  place  of  worship  was  the  original  Episcopal  church 
near  the  Iron  Works,  which  had  been  built  in  1748,  the  services  being  held  irregularly 
till  the  church  was  thoroughly  renovated  in  1816,  and  the  congregation  being  small  till 
1831.  But  in  1821  the  "Trinitarian  Congregational  Church"  in  Scotland  was  formed,  and 
the  first  Swedenborgian  services  were  held  in  the  old  "Number  Six"  school-house,  which 
led  to  the  organization  of  the  present  New  Church  Society  in  1824;  and  thus  it  happened 
that  in  the  first  year  of  Mr.  Hodges'  ministry  the  parish  unity  was  broken.  In  1836  a 
new  Episcopal  church,  near  the  Iron  Works,  and  the  Central  Square  church  were  built, 
the  latter  by  the  Scotland  society,  a  majority  of  whom  transferred  the  organization  to  the 
central  village  and  left  the  minority  to  reorganize  in  Scotland.  In  this  same  year  the 
privileges  of  the  old  parish  societies  were  swept  away  throughout  the  State  by  the  popular 


Brfdgewatcr 


23 


vote  and  the  legislative  action,  adopting  the  voluntary  system  and  putting  all  religious 
societies  on  an  equality,  and  the  heirs  of  the  property  and  traditions  of  the  old  parishes 
became  the  First  Parishes,  or  the  First  Congregational  Societies;  and  in  the  three 
Bridgewaters  to-day  these  are  in  Unitarian  fellowship. 

In  1824  the  Plymouth  County  Agricultural  Society,  organized  in  18 19,  located  its 
permanent  exhibition  here,  and  in  1855  bought  the  sixty  acres  which  have  been  known 
since  as  the  Fair  Grounds,  and  where  exhibitions  have  been  given  yearly. 

In  1833  Theophilus  P.  Doggett  was  ordained,  the  fifth  and  last  minister  of  the  parish 
under  the  old  order  of  things.     He  served  till  1844. 

In  1840  the  Normal  School  was  opened  here,  of  which  an  account  is  given  in  another 
chapter.  In  1842  the  Mount  Prospect  Cemetery  was  dedicated.  In  1843  the  present 
Town  Hall  was  built. 

The  first  New  Church  house  of  worship  was  dedicated  in  1834,  the  present  house  in 
1871.  The  old  house  was  hired  by  the  Methodist  society  in  1874,  who  bought  it  in  1879 
and  remodelled  it  in  1894.  The  present  Unitarian  church  was  built  in  1845  ;  the  present 
Central  Square  church  in  1862,  remodelled  in  1883  ;  the  present  Episcopal  church  in 
1883,  the  Catholic  church  in   1855,  enlarged  in   1898. 

In  1846  the  railroad  from  Boston  was  built,  and  another  railroad  from  Fall  River. 
From  this  time  the  town  grew  rapidly.  In  1830  the  popula- 
tion was  1,855,  ^  g^'n  of  621  in  twenty  years,  largely  due  to 
the  reuniting  of  Titicut  with  this  town;  but  in  1865  it  was 
4,196;  in  1895,  4,686;  and  since  then  has  considerably 
increased. 

Various  manufactures  were  established  here  during  this 
century:  in  1823  the  paper-mill  at  Pratt-town,  where  there 
had  been  a  dam  in  1792,  a  grist-mill  in  1794,  and  a  fulling- 
mill  in  1798;  in  1823  the  Eagle  Cotton-gin  Works,  estab- 
lished by  Bates,  Hyde  &  Co.,  in  1846  moved  to  the  present 
site,  and  rebuilt  in  1853  after  a  fire;  in  1848  the  Perkins  Iron 
Foundry;  and  about  1870  the  first  shoe  factory. 

In  1853  the  State  Farm  was  established  here,  of  which 
an  account  is  given  in  another  chapter.  In  1872  the  Bridge- 
water  Savings  Bank  was  incorporated.  In  1876  Henry  T. 
Pratt  opened  a  printing-office,  and  published  a  twelve-column  weekly,  the  Every  Saturday, 
which  in  December  was  enlarged,  and  took  the  name  of  the  Independent.  It  was  published 
by  Mr.  Pratt  till  1880,  when  it  passed  into  other  hands  and  is  still  published  here.  It  is 
interesting  to  know  that  Bridgwater  in  England  also  has  its  weekly  Independent.  In  1882 
the  Memorial  Library  was  finished.  In  1887  the  town  water-works  were  built.  In 
1897-99  the  electric  cars  connected  this  town  with  East  and  West  Bridgewater,  Brockton, 
Taunton,  Middleboro,  and  through  them  with  all  the  outlying  world.  Within  recent  years 
many  new  streets  have  been  laid  out,  numerous  residences  built,  and  the  loveliness  of 
our  town  has  drawn  many  families  here  to  make  their  permanent  homes  with  us. 


I  FIND  it  growing  here  and  there 

In  many  places  far  away 
From  that,  so  dear  and  pleasant,  where 

I  first  beheld  its  mean  array. 

Oft  have  I  asked  what  name  it  bears, 
But  none  is  wise  enough  to  tell ; 

"  Only  a  common  weed :  "  it  wears 
That  modest  blazon  passing  well. 

No  shame  it  ever  seems  to  take, 

Whatever  company  it  keeps ; 
Nor  —  vagabond  of  flowers  —  to  make 

The  least  ado  where'er  it  sleeps. 

It  has  no  beauty  to  desire. 

Gives,  leaf  nor  bloom,  no  pleasant  smell; 
Yet  are  there  flowers  which  I  admire. 

But  do  not  love  one-half  so  well. 

And  why,  but  that  when  I  was  small, — 
A  little  boy  of  summers  few, — - 

Beside  a  ruddy  cottage  wall 

This  common  weed  so  blithely  grew 

As  if  it  were  the  fairest  rose 

That  ever  on  the  breast  of  June 

Made  sweetness  there  :  so  from  it  flows 
A  spell  that  puts  my  heart  in  tune 


With  all  the  poor,  pathetic  things 

Of  that  young  life  so  long  ago. 
And  from  their  shape  and  action  brings 

A  kindling  warmth,  a  kindly  glow. 

1  see  again  the  tiny  yard 

That  neighbored  with  the  open  door  ; 
The  narrow  plot  of  feeble  sward  ; 

Within,  the  spotless  yellow  floor. 

And,  moving  softly  to  and  fro. 

My  mother  with  her  gentle  eyes, 
My  father  bronzed  as  those  who  go 

Down  to  the  sea  in  ships,  and  wise 

In  all  its  lore,  my  sisters  dear, — 
I  seem  to  see  them  now  as  then ; 

And,  as  the  present  moment  clear. 

All  their  young  ways  come  back  again. 

Nor  these  alone,  but  all  that  made 
My  early  years  so  warm  and  bright 

That  heaven's  self  might  cheaply  fade, 
Matched  with  such  simple-sweet  delight. 

Such  magic  has  this  common  weed 
To  charm  my  backward-yearning  heart 

That  I  would  plant  its  fruitful  seed 

E'en  where  the  "  skyey  roadways  "  part. 

And  just  because  you  have  the  power 

To  work  this  miracle  for  me, 
Poor  little,  nameless,  graceless  flower, 

I  love  you  very  tenderly. 

John  White  Chadwick. 


p 

i 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  BRIDGEWATER. 

^Y  recollections  of  Bridgewater  are  those  of  my  early  youth,  and  naturally 
touched  with  the  glamour  that  hangs  about  that  time.  The  people  that  I 
then  knew  are  remembered  by  many  besides  me.  There  were  some  strik- 
ing figures  among  them.  Mr.  Nicholas  Tillinghast  was  principal  of  the 
Normal  School,  which  was  then  not  far  from  its  beginning.  He  was  the  animating  spirit 
of  the  school,  impressing  upon  it  his.  own  strong  individuality.  Tall,  quiet,  and  reserved 
to  people  in  general,  he  gave  the  idea  of  coldness ;  but  those  who  came  under  his  charge, 
who  worked  with  him,  or  knew  him  intimately,  knew  the  force  and  fervor  which  he  car- 
ried into  his  work  and  into  his  life,  making  him  a  power  and  an  inspiration. 

The  Hon.  John  A.  Shaw  was  an  important  man  in  his  own  character,  his  scholarly 
life,  and  well-considered  opinions.  He  also  represented  the  family  of  the  old  minister, 
the  second  in  Bridgewater,  and  so  gathered  to  himself  much  of  the  respect  which  was  in 
olden  times  so  surely  paid  to  the  minister.  He  himself  studied  for  the  ministry,  but  gave 
it  up  after  a  few  years'  service  in  the  pulpit.  He  spent  so  many  years  in  New  Orleans  as 
Superintendent  of  Public  Schools  that  he  seemed  almost  like  a  visitor  to  his  native  town. 
Still,  he  had  for  many  years  in  Bridgewater  a  boys'  school ;  and  there  are  men  now  living 
who  were  his  pupils,  and  remember  him  and  Mrs.  Shaw  with  affectionate  respect. 

Dr.  Nahum  Washburn  was  the  dentist,  par  excellence,  of  all  the  country  round.  He 
had  great  skill  for  those  days,  and  so  much  common  (or  uncommon)  sense  that  he  antici- 
pated much  of  the  success  achieved  in  later  times  in  his  profession.  His  wit  and  genial 
manners  made  him  so  interesting  that  it  was  often  said  that  Dr.  Washburn  was  so  agree- 
able that  his  patients  were  unaware  of  pain  or  discomfort. 

Perhaps  the  most  prominent  man  in  Bridgewater  in  those  days  was  the  Hon.  Artemas 
Hale.  He  had  represented  the  town  and  district  for  so  long  a  time  that  he  seemed  to 
stand  always  as  the  typical  political  man.  He  was  simple,  straightforward,  with  no  pre- 
tence, full  of  activity  and  zeal  for  the  best  interests  of  his  town  and  country.  I  can  see 
him  now,  a  small,  plain  figure,  running  along  the  streets,  full  of  business.  Some  one  spoke 
of  his  lack  of  dignity, —  that  he  ran  instead  of  walking  in  a  sedate  manner  ;  and  I  well  re- 
member the  answer  made  to  this  remark, —  that  Mr.  Hale's  dignity  was  in  his  character. 

There  was  Captain  Abram  Washburn,  a  very  old  man  as  I  remember  him.  He 
seemed  to  have  come  out  of  the  far  past,  with  its  imprint  on  him,  as  if  he  were  a  link  to 
bind  us  to  the  times  and  people  that  were  gone.  He  was  somewhat  gruff  to  us  children, 
but  he  could  not  so  hide  from  us  a  certain  friendliness  to  our  youth  and  wildness. 

There  were  our  two  good  doctors,  Dr.  Pratt,  our  friendly  neighbor,  and  Dr.  Samuel 
Alden,  who  with  his  descent  from  John  and  Priscilla,  the  immortal  Pilgrim  lovers,  in- 
herited the  quaint  wit  that  distinguishes  the  family.  Skilful  and  sympathetic,  his  warm 
feelings  were  partly  expressed  and  partly  veiled  by  his  keen  and  witty  remarks. 

There  were  many  other  notable  people  whom  I  could  name ;  but,  in  the  short  article 
I  am  to  write,  I  will  add  only  Colonel  Abram  Washburn.  To  my  youthful  imagination 
he  was  the  incarnation  of  the  Spirit  of  '-j^.     I  never  thought  of  the  Revolutionary  patriot 


26  The  Bridgewater  Book 

except  as  being  like  Colonel  Washburn.  Tall  and  straight,  brave  and  simple,  stern,  but 
gentle,  he  seemed  to  be  the  true  American  citizen.  He  threw  himself  heart  and  soul 
into  the  cause  of  anti-slavery.  As  he  was  closely  bound  to  my  father  by  this  common 
interest,  they  made  a  station,  as  it  were,  on  the  Underground  Railroad.  There  were 
secrets  in  those  stormy  days,  to  be  carefully  kept ;  but  I  well  remember  when  Colonel 
Washburn  called  us  into  his  house  to  see  the  afterward  famous  William  and  Ellen  Crafts, 
then  fugitives  from  captivity.  Every  one  knew  their  story  later.  They  were  husband  and 
wife ;  but  the  wife,  being  fair,  took  the  character  of  a  young  planter,  while  her  husband  at- 
tended her  as  a  slave  servant.  These  parts  were  so  well  carried  out  that  they  made  the 
steamer  passage  successfully,  and  eluded  pursuit.  Afterward  they  travelled  abroad,  and 
were  much  feted  and  admired. 

Then  there  was  William  Box  Brown,  as  he  was  called,  a  large  and  stalwart  man,  who 
had  himself  packed  into  a  small  box,  and  sent  as  freight  to  the  North.  Being  forgotten 
or  mis-sent  somewhere,  he  had  to  pass  some  days  in  a  curled-up  position,  frightful  to  think 
of,  sometimes  head  down.     How  he  survived  to  tell  the  tale  was  a  wonder  to  all. 

Colonel  Washburn  lived  long  after  those  troublous  times,  to  see  all  the  slaves  free, 
surviving,  I  think,  all  the  others  I  have  named  and  most  of  his  family  and  generation.  He 
lived  beloved  and  died  lamented,  to  be  ever  tenderly  remembered  by  those  who  knew 
him. 

Lucia  Alden  Bradford  Knapp. 

{From  a  private  letter.) 

I  was  to  board  at  Philo  Mitchell's  on  the  Scotland  road,  which  ran  off  into  the  open 
country  from  our  door,  inviting  me  to  follow  it ;  and  many  a  time  I  did.  Just  below  us 
toward  the  village  was  the  Rev.  David  Brigham's  parsonage.  His  daughter  was  a  lovely 
saint ;  and,  when  she  died,  what  Dante  said  of  Beatrice  seemed  true  of  her, — 

"  No  quality  of  cold  nor  yet  of  heat 
Robbed  us  of  her  as  it  of  others  does, 
But  her  supreme  benignity  alone." 

Some  of  her  own  verses  I  remember,  and  sometimes  I  repeat  them  when  standing  by  a 
new-made  grave. 

The  Rev.  John  Jay  Putnam  was  then  the  Unitarian  minister  at  Bridgewater,  and  I 
preached  my  first  sermon  in  his  pulpit.  He  objected,  I  remember,  to  the  way  I  tossed 
my  hat  upon  the  pulpit  sofa,  and  told  me  how  that  function  should  have  been  performed. 
The  Rev.  Theodore  Rodman,  the  Swedenborgian  minister,  was  very  friendly  to  me,  and, 
without  my  knowledge,  wrote  James  Freeman  Clarke  that  I  had  the  making  of  a  minister 
in  me.     He  was  an  ardent  Emersonian  and  had  a  beautiful  and  well-instructed  mind. 

Much  more  I  should  like  to  write, —  of  Mr.  Conant  and  Mr.  Boyden  and  Miss  Wood- 
ward—  how  kind  she  was  to  me!  and  of  Alfred  Bunker,  my  room-mate,  and  Will  Gro- 
ver, —  they  tell  me  he  is  dead, —  the  splendid  beauty  of  whose  face  and  form  enraptured 

my    young   heart,    and   of  and and .     They   are    all    grandmothers    now, 

but  then !     Plainly,  it  is  time  to  bring  this  letter  to  a  close. 

John  White  Chadwick. 


AT  SCHOOL:  FROM  FOUR  TO  SIXTEEN. 

'T  was  in  the  spring  of  one  of  the  forties  —  the  curious  may  learn  the  exact  year 
by  consulting  the  town  records  and  then  performing  a  mental  calculation  — 
when  a  certain  little  girl,  having  attained  the  age  of  four  years,  was  con- 
sidered fit  to  set  forth  in  pursuit  of  knowledge.  Accordingly,  armed  with 
Worcester's  Primer  and  a  small  slate  to  which  a  pencil  was  tied, —  for  no  kind  town  then 
furnished  our  weapons  of  attack, —  she  entered  the  small  building  on  Cedar  Street  near  the 
present  Methodilt  church,  then  occupied  by  the  New  Jerusalem  Society.  The  old  school- 
house  now  faces  School  Street ;  and,  by  being  raised  and  enlarged,  it  was  long  since  con- 
verted into  a  dwelling-house. 

In  that  small  building  of  only  one  room  besides  the  entries,  gathered  all  the  pupils 
from  four  years  of  age  upward,  in  district  number  one,  who  attended  public  school. 
To  this  child  reading  came  by  nature,  as  Dogberry  averred  it  comes  to  all,  so  that  in  the 
course  of  a  week  after  entering  school  she  was  promoted  to  the  Second  Book.  How 
many  now  remember  the  thrilling  story  of  Peggy  Hammond,  and  the  dire  mishaps  follow- 
ing her  fear  of  spiders  and  other  creeping  things  ?  It  must  have  been  about  this  time 
that  the  whole  class  were  condemned  to  stand  in  the  floor  until  they  could  master  the 
combination  of  letters  in  the  word  "ache."  To  how  high  a  grade  must  a  pupil  now 
attain  before  he  can  spell  the  word  ?  "  Thieves  "  was  another  word  which  conquered  the 
child.  But  she  never  forgot  it  after  the  noon  when  she  had  to  remain  after  school  to  learn 
it.  In  those  days,  few  of  the  small  children  attended  the  common  school  in  winter.  Per- 
haps it  would  have  been  hardly  safe  during  the  time  when  the  master  was  accustomed  to 
throw  ferules  and  jack-knives  across  the  room  at  disorderly  pupils.  A  man  was  always 
hired  for  the  winter,  so  that  there  was  generally  a  new  teacher  for  every  term. 

But  the  education  of  young  children  was  not  neglected  during  the  winter  and  the 
long  vacations.  Several  young  ladies  stood  ready  to  open  private  schools,  tuition  being 
ninepence  a  week. 

A  popular  school  was  held  in  the  little  yellow  building  owned  by  Colonel  Washburn 
which  stood  at  the  left  of  the  present  Methodist  church.  There  were  no  desks,  but 
shelves  or  corner  brackets  served  as  receptacles  for  books  and  work  and  for  refractory 
pupils  too.     Consternation  was  caused  one  day  when  a  girl  who  had  stretched  out  on  her 

shelf  rolled  off  to  the  floor.     And  imagine  the  stately  Miss perched  on  a  bracket 

when  visitors  arrived ! 

With  short  terms  at  the  town  school  eked  out  by  private  instruction,  our  girl 
struggled  on  for  four  years,  reading,  writing,  spelling,  studying  Mitchell's  Primary  Geog- 
raphy, Emerson's  Arithmetic  for  Beginners,  followed  by  Colburn's  First  Steps  in  Num- 
bers. Then  a  change  was  made,  and  the  most  advanced  of  the  pupils  were  put  into  the 
Model  School  of  the  first  Normal  Building.  The  teacher  was  an  admirable  one,  loved  and 
respected  by  all ;  and  many  now  living  can  testify  to  the  good  influences,  mental  and 
moral,  of  Miss  L. 

After  a  year  in  the  Normal  Building  there  was  another  change,  and  both  common- 


28  The  Bridgfcwatcr  Book 

school  grades  were  housed  on  the  first  floor  of  the  old  Academy.  There  they  remained 
until  the  spring  of  1852,  when  the  magnificent  edifice,  removed  a  few  years  ago  to  make 
room  for  the  new  Normal  School,  was  opened.  But  before  its  destruction  it  had  taken  on 
wings  and  was  quite  different  from  its  original  form,  when  it  contained  only  three  school- 
rooms. The  first  winter  in  the  new  house  the  teacher  was  a  man  who  confessed  his  ina- 
bility to  teach  and  govern  at  the  same  time.  So  his  method  was  to  impart  knowledge  for 
a  while,  and  then  to  stop  and  call  to  the  floor  pupils  enough  to  form  a  line  across  the  room, 
when  he  severely  feruled  the  whole  row.  As  all  were  conscious  of  meriting  punishment, 
it  was  quite  exciting  to  listen  and  hear  if  one's  name  was  called.  Our  girl  escaped,  per- 
haps owing  to  certain  red  apples  bestowed  daily  upon  the  wielder  of  the  ferule.  His  suc- 
cessor was  a  lady,  who  proved  so  popular  that,  when  she  went  to  become  assistant  at  the 
Academy,  many  of  the  pupils  went  with  her,  our  young  friend  among  them. 

How  funny  it  was  there  !  Sometimes  the  school  was  on  the  second  floor,  sometimes 
on  the  first.  Sometimes  the  boys  were  in  the  room  one  side  of  the  hall  and  the  girls  in 
the  other,  sometimes  all  were  condensed  into  one.  Sometimes  there  was  an  assistant,  and 
sometimes  pupils  went  to  a  neighboring  house  to  recite  certain  branches.  How  impres- 
sive were  the  annual  visits  of  the  trustees,  grave  and  reverend  men  from  half  the  towns  in 
the  county  !  They  assembled  at  the  hotel,  and  then  marched  to  the  Academy.  It  would 
require  some  time  for  them  to  become  seated,  as  only  a  few  could  be  accommodated  on 
the  lofty  platform ;  and  each,  with  profound  bows,  would  insist  that  his  neighbor  must  have 
the  honor. 

At  the  time  of  which  I  write,  the  principal's  chair  was  most  of  the  time  occupied  by  a 
veteran  schoolmaster,  who  remained  in  town  so  many  years  as  to  be  well  remembered 
now.  His  ways  were  peculiar,  but  had  much  of  good  in  them.  He  required  pupils  to 
make  obeisance  to  him  upon  entering  or  leaving  the  school-room.  He  claimed  that  it  was 
an  act  of  respect  to  the  position  he  occupied,  and  that  in  his  absence  his  chair  repre- 
sented him,  so  that  the  pupils  were  expected  to  bow  profoundly  to  that  piece  of  furniture 
when  it  was  vacant.  Perhaps  some  did.  His  strong  point  was  his  requiring  pupils  to 
memorize,  verbatim  et  literatim  ct  ptinctiiatim.  Well,  one's  head  may  be  filled  with 
worse  stuff  than  volumes  of  Latin  or  English  Grammar.  Probably  there  are  several  in 
town  who  could  recite  in  concert  the  "poetry"  commencing,  "About,  above,  across." 
Then  there  were  the  sweet  lines  beginning  "Ad,  ante,  con,"  and  "A,  ab  or  abs,  absque," 
and  "  Ad,  adversum  or  adversus."  He  made  presents  of  time  for  various  perfectly  recited 
tasks.  The  twenty-six  prepositions  governing  the  accusative  gained  an  hour's  freedom 
from  school.  Offences  were  atoned  for  by  time,  so  that  he  had  a  debit  and  credit  account 
with  many  pupils. 

When  in  after  years  the  hard,  dry  facts  had  become  digested  and  assimilated  in  the 
mind  of  our  girl,  they  gave  her  great  strength ;  and  she  has  never  ceased  to  be  glad  that 
she  was  obliged  to  learn  so  much  "by  heart."  Over  these  days  the  pen  lingers,  and  much 
might  be  written.  Gone  are  all  but  one  of  the  old  school-houses,  gone  are  most  of  those 
who  there  received  instruction ;  but  there  are  ghosts  which  still  wander  and  sometimes 
stir  the  chords  of  memory.     The  new  times  are  better,  but  the  old  were  not  wholly  bad. 

The  Normal  School  and  its  past  work  are  so  well  known  that  we  leave  our  girl  on  its 
threshold  at  sixteen. 

Martha  Keith. 


THE  MEMORIAL  LIBRARY. 

f]0  many  libraries  in  our  towns  have  been  created  by  the  gifts  of  individuals 
who  have  gone  out  from  them  and  gained  wealth,  and  then  returned  to 
show  their  affection  for  the  old  home,  that  a  stranger,  looking  upon  our 
substantial  building,  might  expect  to  find  some  person's  name  upon  its 
portal.  But  the  names  here  are  the  names  of  patriotic  men  who  served  their  country  and 
died  for  it,  and  the  library  is  from  the  beginning  until  now  a  child  of  the  whole  town. 

When  the  Rev.  Zedekiah  Sanger,  D.D.,  was  pastor  of  the  First  Church  from  1788  to 
1820,  his  home  was  a  seat  of  learning.  Besides  his  ten  children,  he  had  in  his  family 
students  for  college  and  the  ministry;  and  what  wonder  is  it  that  he  should  have  become 
a  subscriber  for  the  great  book  of  the  day,  Rees'  Cyclopedia !  But  the  salary  of  four  hun- 
dred dollars  was  outstripped  by  the  encyclopedia  of  eighty-seven  volumes ;  and  at  last  a 
general  subscription  gave  the  book  broad  ownership.  This  was  the  beginning.  An  excel- 
lent library  of  choice  literature  was  later  owned  by  a  company  of  ladies,  and  libraries  were 
developed  to  some  degree  in  the  school  districts  ;  and  thus  a  town  library  was  but  a  step 
beyond,  especially  when  the  Hon.  Artemas  Hale  offered  a  number  of  valuable  books. 

In  1879  the  library  began  in  a  hired  room  with  about  three  thousand  books,  in  charge 
of  Miss  Lydia  L.  Lewis.  The  first  report  of  the  trustees  in  1880  shows  no  book  lost, 
eleven  thousand  books  loaned,  and  a  fair  use  of  the  reading-room.  As  was  hoped  for,  this 
good  beginning  led  the  way  to  the  erection  by  the  town,  with  some  gifts  by  individuals 
and  everybody's  help  in  some  way  or  other,  of  a  building ;  and  no  idea  could  so  appropri- 
ately have  given  form  to  this  object  as  that  of  a  Soldiers'  Memorial. 

The  first  movement  for  the  Memorial  made  no  mention  of  its  form,  however,  as  was 
the  wisest  course  while  everything  was  uncertain  ;  but  an  earnest  meeting  was  held  in  the 
Town  Hall  October  i,  1879,  and  a  plan  of  organization  was  then  adopted.  The  Library 
Trustees  and  the  Memorial  Committee  worked  together  from  the  start ;  and  in  the  month 
of  December,  1880,  a  bazaar  was  held,  in  which  every  section  of  the  town  was  fully 
represented.  The  hall  was  crowded  for  three  days.  The  receipts  were  ;JS  1,1 10.35  ^nd  the 
expenses  $23.80,  leaving  $1,086.55  as  the  nucleus  of  the  Memorial  Fund. 

At  its  annual  meeting  in  March,  1881,  the  town  voted  "to  proceed  at  once  to  erect  a 
building  commemorating  the  patriotism  of  our  citizens  in  time  of  national  peril,  and  pro- 
viding a  suitable  hall  for  the  public  library  and  for  such  objects  of  historic  and  scientific 
interest  as  may  come  into  possession  of  the  town."  A  committee  was  then  raised  to 
report  on  plan,  location,  and  cost.  This  committee  reported  a  month  later.  A  discussion 
arose  over  the  site,  but  was  amicably  settled ;  and  all  proceedings  moved  without  delay  to 
the  completion  of  the  building.     Thirty-six  names  appeared  on  the  tablets. 

The  dedication  took  place  on  Memorial  Day,  1882,  with  a  procession  and  exercises  at 
the  building  and  in  the  Central  Square  Church.  Every  word  spoken  was  appropriate,  and 
all  felt  that  a  good  deed  had  been  done  by  them  that  day.  The  expense  of  the  building 
was  $14,481.19,  of  which  the  town  appropriated  $9,057.15  ;  and  the  rest  came  from  other 
sources,  of  which  $848.96  was  the  amount  of  the  une.xpected  balance  of  the  Soldiers'  Fund 
raised  by  the  women  of  the  town  during  the  Civil  War. 


30  The  Bfidgcwatcf  Book 

The  fourth  annual  report  of  the  Library  Trustees  expresses  satisfaction  with  the  new 
building,  gives  the  number  of  books  as  4,217,  shows  a  largely  increased  circulation,  and 
speaks  especially  of  the  museum  as  well  established  by  means  of  numerous  donations. 
Miss  Lucia  L.  Christian  was  then  librarian,  and  has  continued  to  be  wholly  faithful  to  this 
responsible  position.  Except  to  mention  the  two  excellent  librarians,  I  have  refrained  from 
mentioning  names  of  those  still  in  this  life ;  but,  when  I  was  lately  asked  if  I  knew  one 
George  H.  Martin,  now  of  Boston,  my  mind  ran  back  to  him  as  chairman  of  the  first  com- 
mittee to  organize  the  Memorial  Fund.  And,  certainly,  scores  of  us  knew  each  other  well 
in  those  days,  and  took  great  happiness  in  working  together. 

I  shall  always  believe  that  the  great  satisfaction  experienced  by  all  who  were  instru- 
mental in  bringing  the  library  and  its  building  into  existence,  and  in  guiding  its  growth  to 
the  present  time,  was  due  to  the  unusually  high  average  intelligence  of  the  town.  Books 
were  appreciated  by  all  or  almost  all,  as  is  evident  from  the  smaller  libraries  already  in 
existence  in  churches  and  schools.  The  old  Academy  should  have  the  credit  of  this,  as 
far  as  those  were  concerned  who  directly  or  indirectly  benefited  by  its  classical  instruc- 
tion ;  but  perhaps  a  more  pervasive  influence  had  emanated  from  the  Normal  School  since 
its  establishment  in  1S40.  A  person  who  should  go  through  the  town  would  find  that 
almost  every  teacher  was  a  Normal  graduate,  and  was  in  close  touch  with  his  or  her  Alma 
Mater,  and  thus  was  deeply  interested  in  learning  and  imparting  the  knowledge  which  is 
power.  There  was,  therefore,  a  degree  of  eagerness  for  a  public  library ;  and  this  was 
especially  felt  by  the  teachers,  who  from  the  beginning  have  been  accorded  special  privi- 
leges and  have  made  excellent  use  of  them  by  introducing  their  scholars  to  the  best  and 
most  appropriate  reading. 

Before  we  had  the  library,  a  farmer,  who  had  been  kept  at  home  by  illness,  was  asked 
what  he  had  done  to  employ  his  time.  "  Well,  I  read  my  Bible  and  my  weekly  paper," 
said  in  a  tone  which  implied  that  he  had  found  the  winter  a  long  one.  Now  a  good  book 
each  week  between  the  Bible  and  the  newspaper  satisfied  him  completely.  One  man 
about  ninety  years  of  age  immediately  laid  out  for  himself  a  course  of  reading,  taking 
Africa  for  his  subject,  and  became  an  authority  on  that  continent  and  on  the  explorations 
from  Mungo  Park  to  Stanley. 

Some  of  the  present  trustees  were  among  the  most  active  workers  from  the  start. 

They  and  the  whole  town  deserve  to  be  congratulated  on  the  completion  in  1898  of  the 

beautiful  catalogue,  showing  some  eleven  thousand  volumes,  a  yearly  use  of  twenty-five 

thousand,  five  thousand  cards  issued  to  patrons,  three  thousand  books  loaned  in  the  schools, 

the   museum    still  growing,  friends  still   contributing   time  and  money,  and    everything 

accomplished   that  was  in  the  minds  of  the  pioneers  except  an  endowment.     This  should 

not  now  be  far  away.     If  the  library  could  now  be  endowed  by  some  donor  or  donors,  it 

would  be  better  off  than  if  it  had  received  it  twenty  years  ago ;  but  now  it  needs  just  this 

access  of  strength.     The  library  has  grown  like  a  tree  planted  by  the  rivers  of  waters,  and 

it  has  brought  forth  its  fruit  in  its  season. 

Theodore  F.  Wright. 


THE  STATE  NORMAL  SCHOOL. 

HIS  school  is  one  of  the  first  three  State  normal  schools  on  this  continent. 
The  Hon.  Edmund  Dwight,  of  Boston,  offered  to  furnish  ;^  10,000,  "to  be  ex- 


for  our  common  schools,"  on  condition  that  the  legislature  would  appropriate 
for  the  same  purpose  an  equal  amount.  On  the  19th  of  April,  1838,  the  legislature  passed 
a  resolve  accepting  this  offer.  The  board  decided  to  establish  three  schools  for  the  educa- 
tion of  teachers,  each  to  be  continued  three  years,  as  an  experiment,  and  on  May  30,  1838, 
voted  to  establish  one  of  these  schools  in  the  county  of  Plymouth.  On  December  28,  1838, 
the  board  voted  to  establish  the  other  two  at  Le.xington  and  Barre.  Prominent  men  in 
Plymouth  County,  of  whom  Artemas  Hale  of  Bridgewater  was  chief,  spent  two  years  in 
the  endeavor  to  raise  $10,000  for  the  erection  of  new  buildings  for  the  school.  The  towns 
of  Abington,  Wareham,  Plymouth,  Duxbury,  and  Marshfield,  voted  to  make  appropriations 
for  the  school,  from  the  surplus  revenue  which  had  just  before  been  divided  by  the  general 
government.  After  vigorous  competition  it  was  decided  to  locate  the  school  at  Bridge- 
water,  whereupon  some  of  the  towns  refused  to  redeem  their  pledges,  and  the  funds  were 
not  realized.  Bridgewater  granted  to  the  school  the  free  use  of  its  town  hall  for  three 
years,  and  the  ne.xt  three  years  the  school  paid  a  rental  of  ;^50  a  year.  Here,  by  the  skill 
and  genius  of  its  first  principal,  Nicholas  Tillinghast,  the  experiment  of  a  State  normal 
school  in  the  Old  Colony  was  successfully  performed.  In  1846,  the  State,  with  the  liberal 
co-operation  of  the  town  of  Bridgewater  and  its  citizens,  provided  a  permanent  home  for 
the  school.  The  school  was  opened  September  9,  1840,  with  a  class  of  28  pupils,  7  men 
and  21  women. 

It  has  had  only  three  principals  :  Nicholas  Tillinghast,  who  served  from  1840  to  1853  ; 
Marshall  Conant,  who  served  from  1853  to  i860;  and  Albert  G.  Boyden,  since  1S60. 

The  first  six  years  of  its  life  the  school  held  its  sessions  in  the  town  hall.  In  1846  it 
moved  into  a  new  building,  the  first  State  Normal  School  Building  erected  in  America. 
In  1861  this  building  was  enlarged,  increasing  its  capacity  70  per  cent.  In  1871  this 
building  was  increased  50  per  cent,  by  adding  a  third  story.  In  iSSi  a  building  for  chem- 
ical, physical,  and  industrial  laboratories  was  built.  In  1890  these  buildings  were  removed 
and  a  massive  brick  structure,  S6  feet  in  front  by  187  feet  in  length,  three  stories  above 
the  basement,  was  erected.  In  1894  this  building  was  extended,  increasing  its  capacity 
50  per  cent.  In  1869  the  boarding  department  of  the  school  became  a  necessity ;  and  a 
residence  hall  was  erected,  accommodating  52  students  and  the  family  of  the  principal. 
In  1873  it  was  enlarged  to  accommodate  148  students.  In  1S91  the  laboratory  building 
was  converted  into  a  residence  hall,  accommodating  32  students.  In  1895  Tillinghast  Hall 
was  erected  with  accommodations  for  72  students.  The  present  school  building,  with  its 
equipments,  is  not  surpassed  by  any  normal  school  building  in  the  country  in  its  adapta- 
tion to  its  purpose.  It  will  accommodate  275  normal  students  and  a  practice  school  of 
500  pupils.  The  grounds  have  been  increased  from  one  and  one-quarter  acres  to  sixteen 
acres,  including  a  beautiful  park  and  grove  of  six  and  one-half  acres  and  a  field  of  two 
acres  for  athletic  sports. 

The  course  of  required  studies  was  three  successive  terms  of  fourteen  weeks  up  to 


32  The  Bridgewater  Book 

March,  1S55.  From  this  time  to  March,  1865,  it  was  three  successive  terms  of  twenty 
weeks  each.  Since  March,  1865,  the  shorter  course  required  has  been  four  successive 
terms  of  twenty  weeks  each.  In  1870  the  four  years'  course  was  established.  At  the 
present  time  five  courses  are  in  operation :  a  two  years'  course,  a  three  years',  a  four 
years',  a  kindergarten  course,  and  a  special  course  for  graduates  of  colleges  and  normal 
schools  and  for  teachers  who  have  had  five  years'  experience  in  teaching. 

In  the  beginning  there  was  a  model  school  in  connection  with  the  normal  school, 
composed  of  children  of  the  neighborhood  who  were  to  be  taught  by  the  normal  pupils 
under  the  eye  and  direction  of  their  teachers. 

This  school  was  kept  the  first  si.\  years  in  a  small  school-house  near  the  normal 
school,  erected  for  the  purpose  by  the  centre  school  district  of  the  town.  Afterward  the 
school  was  kept  in  the  model  school-room  in  the  normal  school-house. 

Practice  teaching  was  not  very  attractive  to  the  normal  pupils,  and  some  parents  pre- 
ferred that  their  children  should  not  be  "  experimented  with."  Mr.  Tillinghast  was  quite 
willing  that  the  school  should  be  discontinued.     It  was  closed  in  March,  1850. 

From  1S80  to  1891  the  primary  grades  of  the  centre  school  were  used  by  the  normal 
school  as  a  school  of  observation.  In  September,  1891,  the  whole  centre  school  came 
into  the  new  normal  school  building,  to  be  used  as  a  school  for  observation  and  practice 
by  the  normal  school.  The  State  provides  the  building  and  the  supplies  for  the  school, 
and  pays  part  of  the  salaries  of  the  teachers.  Its  purpose  is  to  exemplify  the  mode  of 
conducting  a  good  public  school  and  to  train  the  normal  students  in  observing  and  teach- 
ing children.  It  is  under  the  general  supervision  of  the  principal  of  the  normal  school, 
the  direct  supervision  of  the  vice-principal,  and  includes  the  kindergarten  and  the  nine 
elementary  grades  of  the  public  school  of  the  centre  of  the  town.  It  has  twelve  teachers, 
—  a  principal  and  a  regular  teacher  for  each  grade,  and  a  supervisor  of  the  practice  of  the 
normal  students.     The  number  enrolled  in  the  model  school  is  440. 

The  whole  number  of  pupils  admitted  to  the  school  has  been  1,263  men,  3,360  women  ; 
total,  4,623.  The  whole  number  of  graduates  has  been  817  men,  2,064  women  ;  total,  2,881. 
The  number  of  graduates  from  the  four  years'  course  has  been  128  men,  113  women  ; 
total,  241. 

The  school  has  sought  to  set  before  its  students  a  high  ideal  of  what  life  should 
be,  to  awaken  the  conscience  to  the  responsibilities  of  the  teacher,  to  give  them  command 
of  themselves,  of  the  philosophy  of  teaching,  of  the  subjects  to  be  used  in  teaching, 
and  such  a  knowledge  of  children  that  they  shall  be  able  to  practise  the  art  of  teaching 
in  the  education  of  their  pupils. 

The  school  has  a  national  reputation.  Its  graduates  are  engaged  in  all  lines  of  edu- 
cational work, —  as  teachers  in  common,  high,  and  normal  schools,  as  superintendents  of 
schools.  State  agents,  and  State  superintendents.  Some  have  become  prominent  as  law- 
yers, physicians,  clergymen,  and  in  business.  Many  as  wives  and  mothers  exert  a  strong 
educational  influence.  Some  are  missionaries.  The  influence  of  the  school  is  felt  around 
the  globe. 

Albert  G.  Bovden. 

Note. —  The  views  of  the  front  and  rear  of  Normal  Hall,  which  were  taken  in  1S81,  as  given  in  the 
plate,  show  it  as  it  still  is.  The  Grammar  School  was  removed  in  1891,  and  Tillinghast  Hall  stands 
nearly  on  the  site  of  it.  Woodward  Hall  was  originally  part  of  the  Normal  School  liuilding,  and  in  1891 
was  removed  to  its  present  site  behind  Normal  Hall. 


PARISH  AND  CHURCH  IN  THE  OLD  TIMES. 

HE  leaders  in  the  settlement  of  Salem  in  1628,  and  later  of  Boston  and  other 
towns  in  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Colony,  were  non-conformists,  who  were 
willing  to  stay  in  the  English  "Established"  National  Church,  if  certain 
teachings  and  ritual  forms  could  be  modified,  which  tended,  as  they  thought, 
toward  the  Catholic  Church.  They  refused  to  conform  to  these  customs  and  to  assent  to 
these  teachings ;  and,  therefore,  they  were  persecuted  in  England  and  their  ministers 
forced  out  of  the  pulpits  of  the  Church.  They  were  called  Puritans  because  they  wished 
to  purify  the  doctrine  and  worship  of  the  National  Church.  The  Pilgrims,  on  the  other 
hand,  who  settled  in  Plymouth  in  1620,  were  "Separatists,"  or  "Independents,"  who 
objected  to  any  kind  of  "establishment"  or  support  of  religious  institutions  by  the  civil 
government,  and  would  have  every  religious  society  entirely  independent  of  all  others  with 
regard  to  creed  and  worship.  They  wanted  to  separate  entirely  from  the  National  Church. 
The  Puritans  of  Massachusetts  Bay  were,  therefore,  somewhat  aristocratic  in  their  ideas 
of  religious  institutions,  as  in  many  of  their  social  customs:  whereas  the  Pilgrims  were 
thoroughly  democratic.  Between  the  non-conformist  and  the  Pilgrim  ideas  there  began, 
then,  a  struggle  which  really  lasted  for  more  than  two  hundred  years  till  1836,  when  the 
Pilgrim  ideas  finally  conquered  and  the  voluntary  system  of  supporting  religious  institu- 
tions was  legally  introduced. 

From  the  very  first  the  ideas  of  the  non-conformists  in  Salem  and  Boston  were 
modified  by  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  their  life  in  this  New  World,  and  they  soon 
ceased  to  consider  themselves  members  of  the  Church  of  England.  They  adopted  from 
time  to  time  some  of  the  Separatist  ideas,  and  thus  formed  the  distinctive  Congregation- 
alism of  Massachusetts.  But  they  could  not  for  a  long  time  break  away  from  certain  con- 
victions about  the  duty  of  the  civil  government  to  support  religious  institutions  by  com- 
pelling towns  to  settle  ministers,  enforcing  attendance  at  public  worship,  and  requiring 
payment  of  taxes  for  the  e.\pense  of  these  institutions,  which  is  called  the  union  of  Church 
and  State, —  convictions  which  had  been  universally  held  in  Christendom  for  many 
centuries,  and  were  unanimously  held  in  the  time  of  the  Puritans  by  all  but  some  insignifi- 
cant sects,  like  the  Separatists  and  the  Quakers.  They,  therefore,  tried  to  organize  an 
"  Established  Church  "  here,  in  which  the  governor  and  legislature  would  control  all 
ecclesiastical  affairs,  just  as  Parliament  and  the  bishops  did  in  England,  and  only  the 
members  of  their  Puritan  churches  should  vote  or  hold  office  in  town  and  State,  just  as 
in  England  only  Episcopal  church-members  were  allowed  these  privileges.  The  Puri- 
tans had  been  the  dissenters  in  England,  but  here  they  treated  all  other  people  as 
dissenters. 

The  Puritans  had  been  in  Massachusetts  Bay  but  three  years,  when  they  enacted  in 
163 1  that  "no  one  shall  be  admitted  to  the  freedom  of  this  body  politic  " — that  is,  shall  be 
allowed  to  vote  or  hold  oflSce  —  "  unless  he  be  a  member  of  some  church  " —  that  is,  of  some 
church  duly  authorized  by  the  legislature — "within  the  limits  of  the  same"  ;  and  this  law 
was  enforced  till   1664.     But  it  was  also  enacted  in   1638  that  all  inhabitants,  whether 


34  The  Bfidgewater  Book 

church-members  or  not,  should  be  taxed  for  church  expenses  as  well  as  for  town  expenses, 
except  in  Boston,  where  for  some  reason  pew-owners  only  were  taxed  for  church  support. 
In  the  Plymouth  Colony,  however,  all  "heads  of  families"  were  allowed  to  vote,  because 
the  Pilgrims  did  not  believe  in  uniting  Church  and  State  and  giving  the  church-members 
entire  control  of  the  civil  government.  The  Massachusetts  Colony  was  thus  organized 
after  the  English  model ;  and  in  1646  it  re-enacted  the  English  law  compelling  church 
attendance,  and  required  a  fine  of  five  shillings  for  each  absence  without  good  cause  on 
the  Lord's  Day,  Fast  Day,  or  Thanksgiving, —  a  very  heavy  fine  for  those  times.  It  was 
regarded  by  the  common  law  of  England  as  a  penal  offence  not  to  attend  church.  In 
1647  the  rigor  of  the  law  of  163 1  was  somewhat  relaxed  by  a  law  allowing  others  than 
church-members  to  vote  for  selectmen  and  on  tax  questions,  but  still  refusing  them  the 
privilege  of  voting  for  State  officers. 

The  governor  and  legislature,  thus  chosen  by  church-members,  had  great  authority. 
They  could  remove  heretical  or  vicious  ministers  and  aid  feeble  churches.  After  1650 
they  passed  laws  requiring  every  town  to  be  supplied  with  a  minister,  meeting-house,  and 
parsonage,  and  to  tax  all  land-owners  for  religious  expenses.  The  County  Court  was  au- 
thorized to  enforce  these  laws.  In  165 1  the  Maiden  church  was  fined  by  the  legislature 
for  not  consulting  the  other  churches  and  the  legislature  in  choosing  a  minister,  and 
churches  often  petitioned  the  legislature  to  find  ministers  for  them. 

But  this  state  of  things  was  possible  only  while  Cromwell  and  the  Puritans 
governed  England.  In  1662,  soon  after  the  accession  of  Charles  II.  to  the  throne, 
the  royal  command  came  to  make  all  English  land-owners  voters  in  State  affairs,  "  if  of 
competent  estate";  and  in  1664  the  Massachusetts  legislature  reluctantly  yielded,  mak- 
ing the  payment  of  ten  shillings  tax  a  condition  of  having  the  privilege  of  voting.  Thus 
the  old  theocracy  of  church-members,  which  had  ruled  the  State  for  thirty-three  years, 
came  to  an  end.  Still,  the  churches,  though  losing  control  of  the  civil  government, 
retained  till  1780,  more  than  a  century,  the  privilege  of  choosing  the  ministers  whom 
the  people  were  taxed  to  support.  But  after  1692,  when  the  colonial  charter  had  been 
taken  away  and  Massachusetts  became  a  royal  province  under  a  governor  appointed  by  the 
king,  the  churches  consulted  the  non-church-members  in  town-meetings  about  the  settle- 
ment of  ministers.  In  this  year,  too,  the  Plymouth  Colony  became  part  of  the  Province 
of  Massachusetts  and  was  governed  by  Massachusetts  laws. 

Previous  to  this  date  the  words  "parish  "  and  "  precinct  "  do  not  occur  in  the  records  ; 
but  in  the  provincial  times  they  came  into  use  as  indiscriminate  names  for  "town,"  or 
gradually  as  names  for  a  town  in  its  relation  to  the  church  for  which  it  voted  and  raised 
money.  Pretty  early  it  became  convenient  to  have  two  or  more  meeting-houses  in  differ- 
ent parts  of  a  town  ;  and  then  the  town  was  divided  territorially  into  as  many  parishes  or 
precincts,  and  their  bounds  were  exactly  defined  by  the  legislature.  Thus  in  Bridgewater 
the  South  Parish  was  "set  off"  in  1716;  the  East  Parish,  in  1723,  what  remained  being 
called  the  West  Parish  ;  in  1738,  the  North  Parish  ;  and  in  1743,  the  Titicut  Parish. 

But  now  a  new  complication  arose.  During  the  eighteenth  century  there  grew  up 
new  religious  societies  within  these  territorial  parishes,  and  the  supporters  of  these  new 
movements  felt  it  to  be  a  grievance  that  they  should  still  be  compelled  to  pay  taxes  for 
the  support  of  the  parish  minister  also.  A  long  agitation  followed.  As  early  as  1728 
Quakers  were  exempted  from  the  "minister's  tax."  In  Boston  and  a  few  other  places  it 
was  never  enforced  or  was  early  abolished.     In  other  places,  as  early  as  1735,  town  trcas- 


Parish  and  Church  in  the  Old  Times  3S 

urers  were  ordered  to  pay  to  the  Episcopal  rectors  their  parishioners'  minister's  tax,  pro- 
vided these  parishioners  brought  certain  certificates.  The  Baptists  obtained  some  relief 
in  1757,  and  the  Universalists  in  1786.  The  Methodists  first  appear  about  1790.  But  in 
1754  the  legislature  had  enacted  that  any  town  or  parish,  if  so  disposed,  could  adopt  the 
Boston  custom  of  taxing  only  pew-owners  in  the  parish  church.  In  1791  the  old  fine  of 
five  shillings  for  every  absence  was  changed  to  a  fine  of  ten  shillings  for  three  months' 
absence,  and  this  was  not  repealed  till  1S35.  After  1780  laws  were  passed  allowing  people 
to  indicate  to  what  church  in  the  town  their  minister's  taxes  should  be  paid.  If  no  prefer- 
ence was  expressed,  the  taxes  went  to  support  the  parish  minister.  But  in  1804  the  court 
decided  that  a  minister  must  be  ordained  and  settled  over  a  society,  not  merely  an  itiner- 
ant, in  order  to  receive  the  benefit  of  the  minister's  taxes.  It  had  been  already  decided 
that  a  society  did  not  need  to  be  incorporated,  and  many  dissenting  societies  were  formed 
at  this  time  for  the  purpose  of  evading  the  payment  of  the  minister's  tax  ;  but  in  1810  it 
was  decided  that  dissenting  societies  must  be  incorporated.  In  181 1  "the  religious  free- 
dom act  "  was  passed,  practically  reversing  this  by  providing  that  any  tax-payer  could,  on 
filing  a  certificate  with  the  town  treasurer,  have  his  tax  paid  to  any  minister  in  his  town  ; 
but  until  1831  business  corporations  were  not  allowed  this  privilege;  their  minister's 
taxes  went  to  the  support  of  the  parish  minister.  In  1820  the  dissenting  societies  were 
about  a  third  of  all  the  religious  societies  in  the  State.  In  1828  the  court  decided  that 
every  one  who  could  not  show  that  he  belonged  to  some  other  religious  society  must  be 
regarded  as  belonging  still  to  the  parish  society,  where  his  tax  must  go  and  where  he  also 
had  the  privilege  of  voting  in  parish  meetings. 

After  1800  the  old  rigor  with  regard  to  church  attendance  was  further  relaxed. 
Those  who  wished  to  attend  meeting  in  another  town  had  been  "  set  off,"  by  special  act, 
on  individual  petition  to  the  legislature.  In  1804  it  was  enacted  that  in  such  cases  the 
minister's  tax  should  be  paid  by  the  town  treasurer  to  that  other  town,  and  in  1824  it 
was  enacted  that  this  liberty  should  be  allowed  without  special  petition  to  the  legislature. 

Until  1829  ministers  were  exempted  from  taxation,  because  they  were  regarded  as 
town  officials,  and  to  tax  them  would  be  a  breach  of  faith  in  cutting  down  their  salaries. 
In  1807  the  Supreme  Court  decided  that,  in  calling  a  minister,  a  life  settlement  was  un- 
derstood, if  no  limit  of  years  was  specified. 

With  regard  to  the  settlement  of  ministers  and  the  relations  of  church  and  parish,  an 
equal  privilege  had  been  gradually  conceded  as  a  courtesy  by  the  church  to  the  parish. 
But  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  in  1780,  the  original  relation  was  entirely  reversed  by 
the  Third  Article  of  the  Bill  of  Rights  in  the  new  Constitution  of  the  State,  which  pro- 
vided that  "  the  legislature  shall,  from  time  to  time,  authorize  and  require  the  several 
towns,  parishes,  precincts,  and  other  bodies  politic,  or  religious  societies,"  to  support 
public  worship, —  thus  ignoring  the  churches  and  thereby  depriving  them  of  all  legal  au- 
thority. A  strong  argument  in  favor  of  this  article  was  the  principle  that  taxation  and 
the  right  of  voting  should  go  together,  in  Church  as  well  as  in  State.  The  article  was 
drawn  up  by  careful  lawyers,  who  dreaded  the  possibility  of  some  such  priestly  tyranny  as 
England  had  suffered  from  in  the  previous  century.  But  the  fear  was  groundless,  and 
the  result  calamitous.  For  it  gave  the  religious  interests  of  our  towns  at  that  time  en- 
tirely into  the  control  of  the  voters  of  the  towns,  and  many  of  these  voters  were  often 
ready  to  antagonize  any  moral  or  religious  movement  which  the  minister  or  the  church 
might  try  to  promote.  Even  after  1836,  when  this  article  was  modified  so  as  to  abolish  all 
State  control,  the  precedents  it  established  have  continued  in  many  cases  to  degrade  the 
churches,  embarrass  the  pulpits,  and  seriously  injure  the  religious  life  of  our  State,  because 
they  have  given  all  legal  power  to  the  parish,  which  might  consist  of  the  pew-owners  only 
or  be  a  loosely  organized  society  of  people,  many  of  whom  have  no  sympathy  with  the  re- 
ligious aims  of  the  church.  The  case  of  the  Rev.  John  Pierpont,  who  in  1845  was  forced  out 
of  the  Hollis  Street  pulpit  in  Boston  on  account  of  his  frank  preaching  on  intemperance, 


36  The  Bfidgfewater  Book 

was  one  of  many  instances.  These  became  so  numerous  and  grievous  that  in  1887 
a  statute  was  passed  allowing  churches  to  be  incorporated  with  all  the  rights  of  parishes, 
so  as  to  hold  legally  their  houses  of  worship  and  other  property,  and  to  have  exclusive 
voice  in  the  settlement  and  dismissal  of  ministers.  This  was  a  return  to  the  wise  spirit 
of  the  Puritans,  without  the  injustice  of  taxing  those  who  have  no  vote  in  church  affairs. 
It  indicates  the  path  of  deliverance  from  the  bondage  of  the  past  hundred  years  and  all 
the  mischiefs  it  has  caused.  In  one  large  Congregational  denomination,  all  new  religious 
enterprises  have  been  organized  as  "churches"  under  this  statute;  and  many  old  parishes 
have  been  induced  to  surrender  their  property  to  the  churches  connected  with  them.  In 
many  cases,  to  be  sure,  there  has  been  perfect  harmony  between  parish  and  church,  and 
the  parishes,  as  a  matter  of  courtesy,  have  generally  consulted  their  churches  in  the  set- 
tlement of  ministers ;  but  where  the  parish  has  sole  legal  authority  there  is  always  oppor- 
tunity for  harm  to  follow  in  certain  contingencies. 

Strenuous  objections  were  made  to  this  Third  Article  at  the  time  of  its  adoption,  es- 
pecially by  the  Boston  delegates.  In  1832  the  repeal  of  it  was  proposed  by  the  legisla- 
ture, and  in  1834  approved  by  popular  vote,  which  in  1836  was  finally  ratified  by  the  leg- 
islature, and  went  into  effect  April  30.  Article  XI.  of  the  amendments  was  substituted, 
which  provides  that  "all  religious  sects  and  denominations  shall  be  equally  under  the 
protection  of  the  law,  and  no  subordination  of  any  one  sect  or  denomination  to  another 
shall  ever  be  established  by  law,"  and  also  abolishes  all  taxation  by  the  towns  for  church 
support,  and  leaves  to  each  society  absolute  freedom  in  its  affairs  with  no  form  of  State 
control.  A  further  enactment  in  1836,  that  "no  one  can  be  made  a  member  of  any  relig- 
ious society  without  his  consent  in  writing,"  annulled  the  decision  of  the  court  in  1828,  re- 
ferred to  above.     The  Third  Article  had  been  in  force  for  fifty-six  years. 

The  word  "parish,"  about  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  began  to  be  used  in  a  second 
meaning  also ;  that  is,  to  mean  any  one  of  several  congregations  whose  members  live  in 
the  same  territory,  or  parish,  in  the  old  sense.  These  were  often  called  "  poll  parishes." 
And  in  1836  the  societies  which  were  left  in  possession  of  the  old  parish  records,  tradi- 
tions and  property,  became  "  poll  parishes,"  like  the  rest,  and  were  known  as  First 
Parishes,  because  they  were  the  oldest. 

Thus  for  the  past  sixty-three  years  the  voluntary  system  of  church  support  has 
taken  the  place  of  the  ancient  system,  which  had  been  the  law  of  Christian  Europe  for. 
many  centuries, —  a  system  which  expressed  a  Christian  nation's  feeling  of  responsibility 
for  the  religious  training  of  all  its  people,  requiring  them  all  to  contribute  for  the  nation's 
religious  institutions  and  to  attend  its  services.  It  expressed  the  same  feeling  of  respon- 
sibility for  the  religious  life  of  the  whole  nation  that  our  modern  common-school  system 
expresses  for  the  mental  training  of  our  children,  by  taxing  every  citizen  according  to  his 
means  for  its  support.  As  long  as  there  was  practical  harmony  of  religious  thought  and 
feeling,  it  was  easy  to  maintain  this  system  ;  for  it  voiced  the  nation's  deepest  faiths  and 
most  intense  enthusiasms,  and  support  of  it  was  regarded  to  be  as  much  a  patriotic  duty 
as  paying  taxes  for  the  support  of  the  civil  government  or  taking  up  arms  against  a  for- 
eign enemy.  But  the  growth  of  sectarianism  made  the  old  system  impossible.  Yet  the 
consequences  of  the  change  have  thus  far  been  in  some  respects  deplorable,  as  is  seen  in 
the  estrangement  of  great  multitudes  from  all  religious  influences,  the  indifference  of 
most  church  members  to  this  vast  amount  of  practical  paganism  right  among  them,  and 
the  shocking  waste  involved  in  sectarian  rivalries.  To  meet  these  new  perils,  we  must 
devise  new  methods  of  religious  work  under  our  voluntary  system,  and  awaken  a  new  en- 
thusiasm in  our  churches,  and  bring  together  the  sundered  sects  in  a  new  "  unity  of  the 
spirit,"  which  will  restore  religion  to  its  old-time,  foremost  place  in  our  social  and  national 
life,  and  bring  every  man,  woman,  and  child  under  some  religious  influences. 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  the  first  settlers  of  this  town  organized  a  church  before 
they  formed  a  civil  government.  The  religious  interests  of  human  life  were  more  impor- 
tant to  them  than  the  merely  material  welfare  and  comfort  of  life.  This  was  the  spirit  in 
which  our  New  England  civilization  was  founded,  and  only  as  we  are  faithful  to  this  spirit 
can  our  civilization  really  prosper. 


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THE  STATE  FARM. 

S^^^aHE  public  institution  of  the  Commonwealth  known  as  the  State  Farm,  a  por- 
jMf^^^  '•'°"  °^  which  is  represented  by  the  accompanying  plate,  is  not  fully  shown 
■Fn/^5w!  '"  character,  purpose,  or  extent  by  the  name  given  or  picture  made.  The 
^j^^^  variety  of  duties  required  and  offices  performed  in  the  medical,  charitable,  and 
^^^" — ^^     penal  directions,  precludes  for  a  name  any  convenient  or  euphonious  word  or 


phrase  which  would  designate  clearly  the  several  interests  committed  by  law  to  its  care. 
The  institution  originated  as  a  State  Almshouse;  and  the  name  suggested  its  sole  func- 
tion then, —  that  of  supporting  paupers  who  were  entirely  chargeable  to  the  State  and 
hitherto  had  been  aided  or  supported  by  towns  and  cities  and  reimbursed  by  the  State. 
So  long  ago  as  1832  this  system  of  State  pauper  care  by  the  cities  and  towns  was  obvi- 
ously unsatisfactory  to  the  State,  and  a  commission  was  appointed  to  investigate  the 
"  pauper  system  "  and  make  recommendations.  Various  plans  of  relief  and  support  fol- 
lowed, but  the  radical  change  by  which  the  Commonwealth  undertook  the  total  support  of 
the  unsettled  or  State  paupers  in  large  institutions  of  their  own  was  not  affected  till 
1853-55.  By  this  time  State  pauperism  had  so  increased  by  foreign  emigration  that  the 
local  almshouses  were  practically  swamped  by  a  class  who  found  almshouse  conditions  in 
this  country  luxury  as  compared  with  home  life  in  the  Old  World. 

This  condition  was  on,  and  must  be  met.  The  legislature  of  1852,  in  chapter  275, 
authorized  and  appropriated  therefor  $100,000  for  three  State  Almshouses,  to  accommo- 
date not  less  than  five  hundred  each.  The  commission  appointed  to  execute  the  plan  speci- 
fied, in  the  "  public  notice  "  for  locations,  "  In  considering  the  propositions,  the  commission 
will  have  regard  to  the  centres  of  the  several  pauper  districts  and  to  the  general  salubrity 
and  health  of  the  section." 

In  their  report  of  progress  they  describe  in  great  detail  the  selection  in  South-eastern 
Massachusetts  of  the  Asahael  Shaw  farm  in  Bridgewater.  The  meagre  appropriation  for 
the  great  undertaking  compelled  the  commission  to  finally  consider  nothing  more  substan- 
tial than  wooden  structures. 

May  I,  1855,  the  almshouse  was,  by  proclamation  of  his  Excellency  Governor  Emory 
Washburn,  opened  under  the  government  of  the  following  officials  :  Abraham  T.  Lowe, 
Bradford  L.  Wales,  and  Nahum  Stetson,  inspectors;  Levi  L.  Goodspeed,  superintendent. 
Evidently,  the  new  order  of  pauper  support  was  expected  to  lessen  the  State's  financial 
burden  ;  and,  while  the  managers  were  loyal  to  this  principle,  they  were,  nevertheless,  con- 
vinced that  there  were  other  and  broader  considerations  than  the  dollar  and  cent  cost  of  a 
"pauper  system.." 

Herding  together  more  or  less  indiscriminately  by  the  hundreds,  men,  women,  and 
children  afforded  an  object-lesson  of  the  social  and  moral  side  of  the  question.  A  move- 
ment for  classification  soon  located  the  children  at  Monson,  and  divided  the  adults  some- 
what on  disciplinary  lines, —  the  infirm  and  truly  unfortunate  at  Tewksbury  and  the  volun- 
tary and  able-bodied  rounders  at  Bridgewater. 

In  1866  the  legislature  passed  an  act  making  this  institution  also  a  workhouse,  to 
which  could  be  committed  certain  so-called  vicious  paupers.  In  1870  Mr.  Goodspeed 
retired  after  a  continuous  service  of  fifteen  years,  markedly  successful.  His  was  the  inaug- 
uration period,  and  the  unusual  duties  were  discharged  with  skill  and  executive  power. 

As  a  workhouse,  it  was  natural  enough  that  later  legislation  should  designate  it  as  a 
place  for  the  commitment  of  misdemeanor  offences  ;  and  in  1872  the  legislature  abolished 
the  name  almshouse,  but  under  certain  conditions  some  State  paupers  could  be  sent  here. 

Captain  Nahum  Leonard,  Jr.,  of  Bridgewater,  succeeded  Mr.  Goodspeed  as  the  second 
superintendent.  The  State  Workhouse  had  now  become  practically  a  penal  institution. 
The  appointment  of  a  superintendent  possessing  Captain  Leonard's  judicial  mind  and 
calm  self-possession  was  now  as  necessary  as  had  been  the  push  and  resolution  of  his 
predecessor. 


38  The  Bfidgewater  Book 

With  restricted  almshouse  liberties  came  the  question  of  indoor  industrial  employ- 
ment. Serious  obstacles  were  met  and  overcome,  and  a  foundation  of  industry  so  firmly 
laid  that  the  changed  name  to  workhouse  was  no  misnomer. 

In  1883,  after  thirteen  years'  painstaking  care  and  zealous  preservation  of  this  cheaply 
conceived,  poorly  constructed  old  wooden  fire-trap,  Mr.  Leonard  resigned,  leaving  it  in  far 
better  condition  than  when  he  assumed  its  care. 

On  July  7,  1S83,  thirty-six  hours  after  his  successor  took  charge,  an  incendiary  inmate 
demonstrated  that  the  designation  "  fire-trap  "  was  quite  right  by  sending  up  in  flame  and 
smoke  the  huge  pile  of  fuel,  in  little  more  time  than  it  takes  to  tell  it.  The  legislature 
had  not  adjourned,  but  were  awaiting  the  famous  "  Tevvksbury  investigation  "  report.  En- 
ergetic action  by  the  trustees  and  other  State  officials  commanded  the  immediate  atten- 
tion of  his  E.xcellency  Governor  Butler  and  the  legislature,  and  so  favorably  impressed 
them  with  the  needs  of  rebuilding  that  a  moderate  appropriation  was  made  and  the  work 
at  once  begun.  Lack  of  space  forbids  recording  minutely  the  detail  of  development  and 
reorganization  of  the  past  sixteen  years  and  of  the  evolution  also  of  the  Asylum  for  Insane 
Criminals  within  the  same  period.  The  plans  at  the  beginning  contemplated  little  change 
of  purpose. 

The  rapid  burning  of  the  great  wooden  edifice  on  a  calm  summer  morning,  and  the 
utter  helplessness  of  fire-fighting,  as  witnessed  by  those  closely  associated  with  the  insti- 
tution, deeply  impressed  them  when  they  reflected  what  might  have,  and  certainly 
would  have,  been  the  result,  had  this  conflagration  occurred  during  a  bleak  nor'-wester  or 
driving  north-easter.  A  fearful  holocaust  was  almost  certain.  There  is  little  wonder  that 
they  at  once  resolved  that  reasonable  investment  in  fire-proof  construction  should  be  one 
fundamental  in  the  future  work.  It  was  also  further  resolved  that  convenience  and  sim- 
plicity should  not  be  sacrificed  for  architectural  pride  and  decoration,  and  it  is  a  pleasure 
to  note  that  the  trustees  have  religiously  adhered  to  these  principles  in  every  enlarge- 
ment since  made.  The  development  to  date  is  not  from  a  preconceived  plan  as  a  whole, 
but  rather  a  collection  of  additions  from  time  to  time  as  demands  required.  The  name 
was  changed  in  1887  by  a  substitution  of  the  word  "farm"  for  that  of  "workhouse"  in 
deference  to  the  presence  of  insane  paupers.  The  State  Farm  now  contains  three  depart- 
ments :  the  Prison,  to  which  any  criminal  court  may  commit  males  and  females  for  mis- 
demeanor offences  ;  the  Almshouse  and  Hospital,  which  admits  State  paupers  from  South- 
eastern Massachusetts  ;  and  the  State  Asylum  for  Insane  Criminals. 

To  this  asylum  may  be  committed  by  the  superior  courts  insane  males  charged  with 
or  convicted  of  crime,  and  by  other  processes  insane  male  convicts  from  all  the  prisons  of 
the  Commonwealth.  The  normal  capacity  of  the  whole  institution  is  about  1,500  inmates, 
and  is  one  of  the  largest  in  the  State.  It  contains  762  single  rooms  and  cells  and  39  open 
wards,  containing  332,714  square  feet  of  floor-space.     The  farm  acreage  is  716. 

Bridgewater  and  vicinity  have  always  been  identified  in  the  management  of  the  insti- 
tution ;  and  among  those  of  notably  long  service  may  be  mentioned  the  Hon.  Joshua  E. 
Crane,  a  trustee  for  twelve  years,  Dr.  Edward  Sawyer,  visiting  physician  twenty-six  years, 
and  Dr.  Calvin  Pratt,  visiting  and  consulting  physician  for  the  past  twenty-five  years  and 
still  in  office. 

The  government  of  supervision  was  vested  in  a  board  of  three  inspectors  till  1872,  since 
by  a  board  of  trustees  of  five  members  till  1884,  and  seven  since,  two  of  whom  have  been 
women ;  the  executive  government,  by  three  superintendents  to  date,  serving  fifteen, 
thirteen,  and  sixteen  years  respectively.  The  inspectors  and  trustees  have  been  repre- 
sented by  twenty-seven  gentlemen  and  seven  ladies,  and  in  forty-four  years  over  forty 
thousand  inmates  have  been  committed  to  their  care. 

The  services  of  these  honorable  and  distinguished  citizens  have  been  gratuitous,  but 
none  the  less  arduous  and  devoted  on  this  account.  Their  labors  have  been  to  make  the 
institution  an  influence  for  the  improvement  of  our  unfortunate  and  defective  fellow-men 
and  an  agent  for  the  protection  of  society. 

HOLLIS  M.   Blackstone. 


MINISTRIES. 

The  early  ministries  of  the  First  Parishes  are  given  in  the  chapters  on  the  towns. 

WEST  BRIDGEWATER. 
First  Congregational  (^Unitarian,  or  First  Farisli). 

Richard  Stone,  1834-42;  Darius  Forbes,  1845-47;  J.  G.  Forman,  1844-51  ;  R.  A.  Ballou,  1852-56; 
S.  B.  Flagg,  1857-58;  Ira  Bailey,  1857-60;  D.  S.  M.  Potter,  1860-62;  W.  B.  Thayer,  1863-64;  N.  O. 
Chaffee,  1864-65;  T.  L.  Dean,  1865-67;  J.  G.  Forman,  1867-70;  F.  B.  Hamblett,  1871-76;  J.  W.  Fitch, 
1876-77;  D.  H.  Montgomery,  1877-80;  C.  C.  Carpenter,  1880-83;  W.  Brown,  1883-S8;  Samuel  Hamlet, 
1888-94;   E.  B.  Maglathlin,  1894. 

Baptist. 

Bartlett  Pease,  1838-41;  S.  S.  Laighton,  1841-42;  Caleb  Benson,  1842-44;  P.  S.  Whitman,  1845- 
46;  Jeremiah  Kelley,  1846-47;  Silas  Hall,  1847;  A.  W.  Carr,  1847-49;  G.  S.  Stockwell,  1851-53; 
Cephas  Pasco,  1859-71  ;  Joseph  Barber,  1871-76;  H.  H.  Beaman,  1876-S1  ;  J.  W.  Dick,  1881-82  ;  W.  S. 
Walker,  1S83-85;  G.  B.  Lawton,  1889-94;  E.  M.  Bartlett,  1894-97;  W.  L.  Smith,  1897. 

Alethodist  Episcopal. 

E.  J.  P.  Colger,  1841-42  ;  S.  W.  Coggeshall,  1843  ;  P.  Townsend,  1S44-45  ;  A.  M.  Swinerton,  1846- 
47;  D.  Webb,  1848-49;  T.  Hardman,  1850;  F.  Gavitt,  1851-52;  J.  M.  Worcester,  1853-54;  E.  B. 
Hinckley,  1855-56;  S.  Benson,  1857-59;  H.  D.  Robinson,  i860;  C.  Hammond,  1861  ;  J.  C.  Allen, 
1862-63;  F-  Sears,  1864-65;  W.  Eld,  1866-67;  J.  Mathews,  1868;  P.  Cronden,  1869;  P.  Townsend, 
1870-71;  E.  G.  Babcock,  1872;  B.  Sayer,  1873-74;  E.  A.  Boyden,  1875;  J-  W.  Sutherland,  1876;  A. 
McCord,  1877;  G.  E.  Luther,  1878;  D.  M.  Rogers,  1879-80;  T.  B.  Gurney,  1881-82;  J.  A.  Rood, 
1883-85;  G.  E.  Dunbar,  1886-87;  R-  ?■  Kellogg,  1888-90;  R.  Clark,  1891-93;  E.  S.  Hammond,  1894- 
95;  W.  B.  Heath,  1896. 

EAST   BRIDGEWATER. 

First  Farish. 

S.  A.  Devens,  1837-38;  G.  A.  Williams,  1840-41  ;  I.  H.  Blanchard,  1842;  N.  Whitman,  1844-52; 
J.  H.  Phipps,  1853-61  ;  S.  Farrington,  1861-64;   F.  C.  Williams,  1865-70;  John  W.  Quimby,  1871. 

Union  Church  {Congregational^. 

Baalis  Sanford,  1827-49;  P.  Wilcox,  1851-60;  H.  D.  Woodworth,  1860-62;  N.  D.  Broughton, 
1862-66;  J.  K.  Aldrich,  1868-70;  A.  Dodge,  1870-74;  D.  W.  Richardson,  1874-79;  P-  ^I-  Griffin, 
1880-90;   M.  S.  Kautman,  1891-93;  F.  H.  Palmer,  1893-98;   Granville  Yager,  1898. 

New  Jerusalem  Church  (in  Elmwood'). 

A.  Howard,  1830-38;  J.  Scott,  1843-46;  T.  B.  Hayward,  1846-49;  J.  P.  Perrj-,  1850-53;  E.  Smith, 
1853-56;  T.  O.  Paine,  1856-95:   Clarence  Lathbury,  1895. 

Methodist  Episcopal. 

Carlos  Banning,  1857-58;  C.  H.  Payne,  1859-60;  W.  H.  Stetson,  1861-62;  J.  W.  Willet,  1863; 
W.  F.  Farrington,  1S64-66;  J.  F.  Sheffield,  1867-68;  H.  H.  Martin,  1869-70;  S.  A.  Winsor,  1871-72; 
G.  W.  Anderson.  1872-74;  G.  W.  Ballou,  1875-77;  W.  F.  Smith,  1878-80;  F.  A.  Crafts,  1881-S2;  E.  S. 
Fletcher,  1883-85;  R.  Burn,  1886-88;  J.  N.  Geisler,  1889-91;  L.  H.  Massey,  1892;  M.  B.  Wilson, 
1893-96;  N.  B.  Cook,  1897. 

St.  John  {Catholic). 

In  charge  of  the  resident  pastor  of  the  Bridge  water  church. 


40  The  Bfidgfcwater  Book 

BRIDGEWATER. 
First  Parish  (or  First  Congregational  Society),    Unitarian. 

T.  P.  Doggett,  1S33-44;  Claudius  Bradford,  1845-51  ;  J.  J.  Putnam,  1S56-64;  G.  Dexter,  1865-66; 
G.  H.  Hosmer,  186S-78;  A.  E.  Goodnough,  1879-81  ;  J.  A.  Wilson,  1882-83;  S.  B.  Flagg,  1885;  T.  W. 
Brown,  1SS6-92;  Charles  A.  Allen,  1893. 

Central  Square  Congregational. 

Ebenezer  Gay,  1S33-41  ;  S.  S.  Tappan,  1842-44;  D.  Brigham,  1845-58;  J.  M.  Prince,  1859;  Eben- 
ezer  Douglas,  1S62-67;  H.  D.  Walker,  1S68-79:  J.  C.  Bodwell.  18S0-86;  W.  W.  Fay,  1886-88;  Elbert 
S.  Porter,  I  889. 

Trinity  {Protestatit  Fpiscopal). 

Mathias  Monroe,  1831-35;  H.  Blackeller,  1838-43;  N.  E.  Marble,  1S44-45;  Asa  Eaton,  D.D., 
1850-58;  A.  L.  Baury,  1858-66;  C.  C.  Harris,  1866-68;  W.  Warland,  1868-70;  B.  R.  Gifford,  1871-75; 
W.  H.  Fultz,  J.  Great'head,  and  J.  Jenks,  successively,  1875-82;  J.  M.  Peck,  1883-85;  L.  L.  Ward,  1885- 
87  ;  J.  J.  Cressey,  1887-93  ;  F.  Edwards,  1893-96;  S.  S.  Marquis,  1896-99;  G.  F.  Smythe,  1899. 

New  Jerusalem   Church  {Swedenborgiaii). 

Eleazer  Smith,  1824-26;  Samuel  Worcester,  1833-39;  Th.  Rodman.  1S44-63;  T.  B.  Hayward, 
1864-68;  T.  F.  Wright,  Ph.D.,  1869-S9;  Louis  Rich,  18S9-90;  G.  S.  Wheeler,  1890. 

Scotland  Trinitarian  Congregational. 

Stetson  Raymond,  1836-51;  Joshua  Huntington,  1S51;  D.  D.  Tappan,  1851-52;  Cyrus  Mann, 
1852-53;  J.  D.  Farnsworth,  1853-54;  Otis  Rockwood,  1855-56;  J.  C.  Seagraves,  1857-65;  H.  P.  Leon- 
ard, 1865-67;  A.  G.  Duncan,  1867-73;  I-  Dunham,  1873-77;  C  W.  Wood,  1878-88;  I.C.White,  1888- 
94;  E.  L.  Hunt,  1894-95;  E.  S.  Porter,  1895-96;  Ira  A.  Smith,  1896. 

St.   Thomas  Aquinas  {Catholic'). 

Lawrence  S.  McMahon,  afterward  bishop  of  the  diocese  of  Hartford,  1863-64;  Bernard  O'Reilly, 
1864-66;   M.  J.  Maguire,  1S67-69;  John  A.  Conlin,  1869-88;  William  Ed.  Kelley,  1888. 

Methodist  Episcopal. 

G.  H.  Baker,  1S74:  J.  R.  Ward,  W.  G.  Wilson,  1875  ;  T.  J.  Everett,  1876-77 ;  C.  H.  Morgan,  1878  ;" 
G.  W.  Coon,  1879:  W.  F.  Farrington,  1879-80;  J.  B.  Hengeley,  18S1-82;  W.  A.  Wright,  1883;  E.  S. 
Fletcher,  1884-85;  J.  A.  Rand,  1886;  G.  E.  Dunbar,  1887;  R.  J.  Kellogg,  18S8;  J.  N.  Geisler,  1889; 
G.  Bernreuter,  1890;  R.  E.  Smith,  1891  ;  L.  E.  Lovejoy,  1892-94;  J.  F.  Porter,  1895;  R.  C.  Grose, 
1896-98;  W.  F.  Taylor,  1899. 


1897. 


First  Baptist. 
Wesley  L.  Smith,  1897,  who  has  also  been  pastor  of  the  Baptist  church  in  West  Bridgewater  since 


THE  OLD  BRIDGEWATER  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY. 


SSJI^^^HE  object  of  this  society  is  the  "collection,  preservation,  and  publication  of 
afjKV^  material  which  shall  contribute  to  the  history  of  the  colonial  township  of 
■R/T«/i  Bridgewater."  It  was  organized  April  19,  1894.  Its  officers  are:  Presi- 
Sl^^jjp/  dent,  Hon.  B.  W.  Harris,  of  East  Bridgewater ;  Vice-Presidents,  James  S. 
Allen  (successor  to  the  late  William  Allen  of  East  Bridgewater),  F.  E. 
Howard  of  West  Bridgewater,  G.  M.  Hooper  of  Bridgewater,  and  L.  W.  Puffer  of  Brock- 
ton ;  corresponding  secretary  and  librarian,  J.  E.  Crane,  of  Bridgewater;  recording  secre- 
tary, F.  E.  Sweet,  of  Bridgewater;  treasurer,  Anna  W.  Bates,  of  Bridgewater  (succeeding 
F.  F.  Murdock  and  I.  N.  Nutter).  A  considerable  sum  has  been  pledged  toward  the  erec- 
tion of  a  fire-proof  building  on  land  generously  offered  in  West  Bridgewater  by  Vice- 
President  F.  E.  Howard,  where  may  be  safely  kept  the  society's  valuable  books,  manu- 
scripts, and  relics.  Donations  of  articles  of  historic  value,  as  well  as  contributions  to  the 
building  fund,  are  solicited  from  all  who  are  interested. 


C.   F.   DAHLBERG, 

973  South  Main  Street, 
CAMPELLO. 

Headquarters  for  Plumbing  and  Heating. 
Agent  for  Magee  and  Smith-Anthony 
Furnaces  and  Ranges. 


WILLIAMS  &    MAYO, 

Provision  Dealers, 
Broad  Street,  Bridgewater,  Mass. 

USE    COLE'S    No.   lo. 

THE  GREAT  COLD-KILLER. 

Price,  25  cents  and  $1.00. 

PREPARED  ONLY  BY 

O.   B.   COLE,  Pharmacist, 

Bridgewater,  Mass. 

Ranges,  Heating  Stoves,  Coal-hods, 

Shovels,  Pokers,  Sieves,  Hardware, 

Tinware,  Agateware. 

Furnaces  set  and  repaired. 

J.  B.  ROGERS, 

Bridgewater. 

SOUVENIR   SPOONS 

engraved  to  order  from 

PHOTOGRAPHS. 

•  H.  A.  CLARK,  Jeweller, 
Central  Square,  -  -  -  -  Bridgewater. 


GEORGE    A.   CONGDON, 

MAKER    OF    .-.•.•.•. 
MEN'S   CLOTHES, 

No.  I  Broadway,  Room  9, 

Taunton,   Mass. 

FINE    MILLINERY. 

I  have  now  on  show  all  the  latest  models  of 
Hats  and  Bonnets  for  fall  and  winter  wear, 
and  invite  the  ladies  of  Bridgewater  to  call 
and  inspect  the  same. 

A.  F.  Wastcoat,  57  Main  St., 
Taunton. 

Take  WILCOX'S 

Beef,  Wine,  and  Iron 

For  an  Appetizer  and  Tonic. 

Good  all  the  year  round,  like  the 
"  Bridgewater  Book." 

Wilcox's  Drug  Store,   -  Bridgewater. 

Leading  Periodicals  for  sale. 


FRANK   N.  CHURCHILL, 

DEALER  IN 
DRY  AND 
FANCY  GOODS, 

Gentlemen's    Furnishings,    Hats    and 
Caps, 

CENTRAL   SQUARE, 

Bridgewater. 


VI 


1  he  cridg;ewater  soo^ 


D.  B.  MONROE,  .• 


Boots,  Shoes,  Rubbers, 
Trunks,  Bags,  and  Umbrellas. 
Also  the  Gold  Seal  Rubbers, 
the  best  in  the  world. 

Bank.  Building,  Centre  St., 

MiDDLEBORO,  MaSS. 

Mrs.  G.  a.   PERKINS, 

Millinery. 

Order  Work  a  specialty. 

Mourning  Goods 
promptly  furnished  at  reasonable  prices. 

Main  Street,  Middleboro. 

Opposite  Souk's  Furniture  Store. 


FINE    MILLINERY. 

M.  A.  Wentworth  &  Company, 
No.  6 1  Centre  Street, 
Middleboro,  Mass. 


PASZTOR  &   KLAR, 

BAKERS. 

Ice-cream   Parlors. 
59  Centre  Street,  Middleboro. 

CHARLES  A.  CLARK  &  CO., 

Dry  Goods, 
Cloaks,  and 
Suits. 

51  and  53   Centre  St.,  Middleboro, 
Mass, 


CRYSTAL  CREAMERY  CO., 

20  Centre  Street,  Brockton, 

Telephone  262-3, 
AND  55  City  Square,  Taunton, 

Where  you  can  always  get  Good 
Butter. 


^ 

n 

CREASY  has  a 

fine  line  of  trimmed  hats. 

55  each. 

CREASY  has 

ladies'  bonnets.      ^3  each. 

22  Centre  Street, 

Brockton. 

SMITH    &  HATHAWAY, 
PHARMACISTS, 


Middleboro, 


Mass. 


Prescription  compounding  our  specialty. 

Orders  by  mail  promptly  filled. 


Established   1 8  20. 


Millar   &  Weltch, 

Prescription 
Opticians  ... 

And  Dealers  in  Optical  Goods. 


Cameras  and. 
Supplies   . . . . 


38  WEST    STREET, 


BOSTON. 


WHITMAN,  SPARROW  &  CO., 


DRY   GOODS. 


Centre  Street,     Middleboro,   Mass. 


A.    I.    SIMMONS, 

DEALER    IN 

Meat  and  Provisions. 

BRIDGEWATER. 


House   Heating,    Hot   Water, 
Steam,  and  Hot  Air 

PLUMBING. 

AGENT    FOR 

GLENWOOD  LINE 

OF 

RANGES  AND 
HEATERS. 

Fairbanks'  Hardware  Store, 
Bridgewater. 

Established  1863. 


Our  Store  is  a 

BARGAIN  CENTRE 

and  the  birthplace  of 

LOW  PRICES. 

Middleboro  Clothing  Company, 

16  Centre  Street, 
Middleboro,  Mass. 

Come  and  see  what  a  look  may  save  you, 

CARPENTER  ^  TREMAINE, 
Electrical    Contractors 

AND  DIALERS  IN  ALL  KINDS  OF 

Electrical   Supplies. 

Electrical  construction  work  and  repairs  done  in  best 
possible  manner. 


Teliphone 


Carpenter  &  Tremaine, 
37  Belmont  Street,   Brockton. 


Important  Information  ! 

COLBY'S  CLOTHING  STORE 
is  one  of  the  largest  Clothing  Stores  in  Massa- 
chusetts.    The  assortment  of 

SUITS,  overcoats,  horse  clothing, 
trunks,  hats  AND  rubber  clothing 

is  enormous.      It  will   pay    you  to  visit  this 
establishment. 

Colby's  Clothing  House, 

21  TO  23  Main  Street,  Taunton. 

Christmas 

will  soon  be  with  us. 

We  have  bought  in  anticipation  of  a  large 
sale,  and  can  show  a  complete  line  of 
Children's  Rockers,  Rocking  Horses, 
and  Doll  Carriages. 

Howard,  Clark  &  Co., 
85  Main  Street,  Brockton. 


VIU 


The  Bridgewater  Book 


MORTON   BROTHERS. 

LAUNDRY. 

R.  J.  CASEY,  Agent, 

Bridgewater,   Massachusetts. 

Charles    H.   Washburn, 
FURNITURE, 

Crockery,  and  House-furnishing  Goods. 

No.  12  Union   Block, 

Taunton. 


FOR   THE   HOLIDAYS. 

Large  stock  of  Pocket  and  Table 
Cutlery,  Skates,  Sleds,  etc.,  at    :  : 

F.  R.  WASHBURN'S 

Hardware  Store, 
15  Union  Block,  Taunton. 


A.  J.   BARKER, 


DRUGGIST,  APOTHECARY, 
AND    STATIONER    ::    ::    ::    :: 

10  UNION    BLOCK, 

Taunton,  Mass. 


C.  R.  DICKERMAN, 
DENTIST. 

Gold  and  Bridge  Work  a  Specialty. 

46  City  Square, 

TAUNTON. 


FRANK  H.  BOWERS, 

52   Main  Street,  Taunton. 

DIAMONDS, 

WATCHES, 
JEWELRY, 
SILVERWARE,  and 
NOVELTIES. 

Everything  up-to-date.  Fine  Watch  Repairing. 


VJT'E  solicit  a  share  of  your  trade.     Give  us  a  call 
and  you  will   see  one  of  the  largest  lines  of 
Clothing    and    Gentlemen's     Furnishings     in 
Bristol  County. 

STANDARD  CLOTHING   CO., 

52  AND   54  City   Square,    Taunton. 


ELIAS   MILLBANK, 

FUNERAL  DIRECTOR 

AND 

EMBALMER. 

14  Union   Block, 
Taunton,   Mass. 


H.  A.  CHURCHILL  &  CO. 

have  the  largest  line  or 

BICYCLES. 

Repairing  Guaranteed. 
Cash  or   Instalments. 

31   East  Elm  Street,  BROCKTON. 


PARTS. 
SUNDRIES. 


Taunton    Public    Market. 


"Wholesale  and 
Retail  Market. 


12   Main   Street. 


The  Bfidgfcwater  Book 


TILIPHON*    CONNECTION. 

KENNEDY  BROTHERS, 

FURNITURE   and   PIANO   MOVING. 

Agents  for  Magfe  Ranges    and  Heaters.     Tin,  Sheet-iron 
and   Copper  Work.     Stove    and   Furnace   repairs  of  all    kinds  at 
lowest  prices.     Largest  house  of  its  kind  in  city.      When  in  doubt, 
give  us  a  call.     Stoves  stored  at  reasonable  prices. 

Office  and  Store,  30  School  Street,  Brockton,  Mass. 
M.  J.  Brennan,  Manager.                 Open  evenings  till  ten  o'clock. 

HERMAN  S.  HEWETT  &  CO., 

JEWELLERS  and  OPTICIANS, 

119   Main  Street, 
Brockton. 

F.  E.  FULLER  ^  CO., 

dialers  in 

DRY  AND  FANCY  GOODS, 

Ladies'  and  Gentlemen's  Furnishing  Goods,  Carpets,  and 
Curtains,  Boots,  Shoes  and  Rubbers. 

paper  hangings,   toilet   soaps,   stationery,   etc 

Central  Street, 

East   Bridgkwater,    Mass. 

F.  S.  FAXON,  D.D.S. 

Careful  and  Scientific  Treatment  of  the  Natural  Teeth. 
183   Main   Street,    Brockton. 

L.  A.   FLAGG, 

.                              dealer  in 

Groceries,  Stationery,    Small  Wares, 
AND   Hardware. 

Paints,  Oils,  Varnishes,  and  Window  Glass, 
also  Grass  and  Garden  Seed. 

ELMWOOD,  mass. 

FRANK    SMITH, 

apothecary, 

East   Bridgewater,    Mass. 

E.  L.   COOK, 


manufacturer  of 


building,  sewer,  paving  &  extra  pallet 

BRICK. 


Member  of   Master  Builders'   Exchange,    166   Devonshire  Street,   Boston. 


Office  and  Works  :  Five  minutes'  walk  south  of  Titicut  Station. 


Post-office :  State  Farm,  Mass. 


The  Bridgcwatcf  Book 


NEW    BEDFORD 


The  wealthy  old  whaling  city, 
the  richest  in  America,  size 
considered,  demands  that  its 
merchants  supply  fine  goods. 

NEW  BEDFORD,  the  busy 
manufacturing  centre,  demands 
that  its  merchants  supply 
merchandise  within  the 
purchasing  power  of  its  industrial 
people. 


Both  these  requirements 

are  generously  inet  in  our 
great  house-furnishing  establishment. 
We  operate  the  largest  store  in 
this  section  of  the  State. 


We  carry  an  enormous  stock 

We  sell  at  absolutely  the 

lowest  prices. 

Carpets, 

We  right  all  matters  that 

Furniture, 

go  wrong  between  our  salespeople 

Bedding, 

and  our  customers. 

Window 

We  cheerfully  pay  money  back 

Shades, 

for  any  merchandise  returned, 

Draperies, 

for  any  cause  or  dissatisfaction  whatever. 

Wall  Papers, 

We  want  to  do  business  with  you. 

Crockery, 

A  postal  from  you  will  bring 

Kitchen 

a  prompt  reply  to  any  inquiries 

Supplies, 

you  choose  to  make. 

and 

You  cannot  know  how  cheaply 

Ranges. 

we  sell  until  you  write  us  a  letter, 

or,  better  still,  make  us  a  visit. 

Charles  F.  Wing,  34-38  Purchase  St., 


NEW    BEDFORD,  MASS. 


L.  F.   WILLIAMS, 

Printer  and   Publisher, 

G.  A.   Thatcher,  d.d.s. 

Independent  Block,  Central 

Square,   Bridcewater.   .     . 

Dental    Office, 

Estimates  given  on  Printing  of  every  character.     All 

(>•;>,   Main    Street,    Brockton. 

work  delivered  promptly.      Publisher  of   Bridgewater 

Independent.      Price  J 2.00  per  year. 

H.  S.  HUTCHINSON  &  CO., 

LADIES! 

Booksellers  &  Stationers, 

The  Latest  and  Most  Correct  Styles  in 

MILLINERY 

NEW  BEDFORD,  MASS. 

can  always  be  found  at 

Mrs.  Lena  Wade-Whitman's, 

T<argest  Book-store  in  South-eastern 

27  Centre  Street,  Brockton. 

Massachusetts. 

Mourning  Work  a  Specialty. 

Pearce's  Cafe 

e.  d.  frasier, 

For  Ladies 

Hair  Dressing  and 

and  Gentlemen. 

Bathing  Rooms. 

257  Union  Street, 

Bath-room  open  every  day  and  Sunday  forenoon. 

New  Bedford,   Mass. 

8  Centre  Street,  Brockton. 

A.    PRATT'S 

H  EAT 

5   Rooms, $75 

first-class 

Your 

7   Rooms,          95 

9  Rooms 1 1 0 

Model    Cafe  and   Restaurant. 

House 

piping,   registers,    etc., 
all  complete. 

American  and  European  Plan. 

DIGHTC 

3N   FURNACE. 

Meals  at  all   Hours. 

If  your  old  furnace  has  given  out,  see  what  it  will  cost  to 

40  Main   Street,  Taunton,  Mass. 

repair  it,  then  write  to  us  for  a  price  on  a  new  Dighton. 
Every  'Tart  IVarranted.       Dighton  Furnace  Co., 
Write  for  Catalogue.                         Taunton,    Mass. 

M.   W.   Tillinghast, 

established   1816.                                           incorporated   1S66. 

Presbrey  Stove  Lining  Co., 

Ladies'  and  Gentlemen's 

Restaurant. 

TAUNTON,  MASS. 

Fire  Brick  and  Stove  Linings. 

Any  Shape  or  Size  of  Fire  Brick 
made  to  order  from  Pattern. 

85   and  no  Westminster  Street, 

FIRE    CLAY,     granite     CLAY,      KAOLIN,    FIRE    SAND,    ETC., 

Providence,  R.I. 

BY  THE  TON   OR  CAR 

GO.     B.  C.   PEIRCE,  Treasurer. 

William  E.   Beale, 


Cameras  and 

Photographic  Supplies 

At  Cut   Prices. 
84  Main  Street,  Brockton. 


Lafayette  Keith,    President. 


Samuel  P.  Gates,  Treasurer. 


Bridgewater  Savings 
Bank. 

Interest  commences 

January  i,  April  i,  July  i,  October  i. 

Dividends  are  declared 
April  and  October. 


The  Bridgewater  Inn. 

A  respectable  and 
comfortable  hotel 
with  moderate 
prices. 

GEORGE    J.   ALCOTT,   Proprietor. 


MESSRS. 

WM.   S.   ANDREWS  &   SON 

Invite    you    and    friends   to    examine   their   stocit    of 

"Sorosis"   Shoes 

For   which    they  have  secured  the  exclusive  sale  for 

Middleboro,    Mass., 
22  Centre  St.,  next  door  to  Post-office. 

Daintily  shod  are  those  who  wear  "  SOROSIS." 
Any  one  buying  a  pair  of  shoes  will  have  return  fare 
paid. 


WILLIAM    S.    PROPHETT, 


Established    i860. 


DEALER    IN 


Household   Furniture  of  all  kinds, 


UNDERTAKER. 


BRIDGEWATER. 


Low  prices. 
Reliable  merchandise. 
iVIoney  back  for  the 
asking. 


SPARE'S. 


Buy    $10  worth,  and 
we  pay  fare  here 
and  return. 


THE    BIG 
STORE. 
41  Purchase  Street,  New  Bedford,  Mass 

THE  LARGEST  STOCK  IN  THIS  SECTION.  Garments,  Dress  Skirts, 
Wrappers,  Petticoats,  Silk  Waists,  Dress  Goods,  and  Silks.  Confectionery.  Notions, 
Underwear.     Complete  Kitchen  Furnishings  Department. 

18  departments  crowded  with  new  merchandise.  Ask  the  conductor  to  let  you  off  at  Spare's. 


1^ 


w 


3  1205  01489  1707 


"his  book  was  designed 
and  printed  b}' 

GEO.  H.  ELLIS 


rj  Since  the  removral  of  the  John  Howard  Industrie. 
Home  to  Bridgewater,  on  the  old  Seth  Washburn  es- 
tate on  South  Street,  where  it  has  been  located  for  the 

^  past  three  months,  its  work  has.  progressed  beyond  tlie 
expectations  of  even  the  most  sanguine,  which  is  due 
^  b.no  incon,M^ral  ^to;the  hearty  co-operation 

and  moral      |i||||i  11  |  ||  ||  in  i '  irij  n"' ^*^'^'^  h' 

the  Super      lll|lillllll||||||i||||||y  es^ro 

extend  hi,  AA     000  877  097     6  hank 

-  ..se  who  have  s  .iKributions  and  who 

''^'■^  ^'  le  in  the  furniture  repal 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


|rowing  demands  of  the 

vear,  and  other  articles 

:  needed,  as  well  as  bed 

^oything  else  that  is  re- 

"feusehold.     If,  therefore, 

ffirk  by  making  contribu- 

^sent  to  Box  37  will  have 

■eceipt  acknowledged  by 


igious. 
lumes. 


services, 
inments, 

Prarf-i"r:il  Tnl' 


-lipped. 


iCilDE.Vl  , 


.according  to  hours  of  exercise. 
GEORGE   PEIRCE,  Secretary. 


